He cleared another field, and increased his acreage, because now his machinery allowed him to work more land with the same amount of effort.

因为农业机械化使得他付出同样的劳作，却可以耕种更多的土地。

But in Japan or China, farmers didn't have the money to buy equipment. and, in any case, there certainly wasn't any extra land that could easily be converted into new fields.

但是在日本和中国，农民没有余钱去购买设备，并且情况也不允许他们开发更多的土地。

So rice farmers improve their yields by becoming smarter, by becoming better managers of their own time, and by making better choices.

因此耕种水稻的农民只有依靠他们的智慧去提高他们的产量，如更加有效地管理时间，作出更好的抉择。

As the anthropologist Francesca Bray puts it, rice agriculture is "skill oriented":

人类学家弗朗西斯库·贝瑞曾经指出，稻田农业是种“技术作业”：

if you're willing to weed a bit more diligently, and become more adept at fertilizing, and spend a bit more time monitoring water levels,

如果你想获得丰收，你就要更加辛勤地除草、谨慎地施肥、

and do a better job keeping the claypan absolutely level, and make use of every square inch of your mu, you'll harvest a bigger crop.

多花心思灌溉田地以保持水位、调整合适的土层高度，努力耕耘每一寸土地。

Throughout history, not surprisingly, the people who grow rice have always worked harder than almost any other kind of farmer.

回溯一下历史，毫无疑问，耕种稻田的农民总是比耕种其他农作物的农民更辛苦。

That last statement may seem a little odd, because we have a sense that everyone in the premodern world worked really hard. But that simply isn't true.

或许这个结论看起来有点奇怪，因为我们大多数人都会认为每位生活在非现代化社会的人的工作都十分辛苦。显而易见，这是个误解。

All of us, for example, are descendents of some point from hunter-gatherers, and many hunter-gatherers, by all accounts, had a pretty leisurely life.

举个例子，从某种角度来说，我们所有人都是捕猎者的后代，通常很多捕猎者都聚集在一起，过着十分悠闲的生活。

The Kung bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, in Botswana, who are one of the last many practitioners of that way of life,

一群生活在喀拉哈里沙漠灌木丛中的土著人，至今还保持着这种早期人类的生活方式。

subsist, in large part, on the mongongo nut, and incredibly plentiful and protein-rich source of food that lies thick on the ground.

他们依靠水果、浆果、植物根茎以及一种特殊的坚果和大量散落在地上的富含蛋白质的食物来维持生活。

They don't grow anything, and it's growing things-preparing, planting, weeding, harvesting, storing-that takes time.

他们从不耕种，但现在的耕种却需要花费很多时间去准备、播种、除草、丰收、储藏。

Nor do they raise any animals.Occasionally, the male !Kung hunt, but chiefly for sport.

他们也不圈养家禽，原始人里的男性偶尔进行打猎也只是为了运动。

All told, Kung men and women worked no more than twelve to nineteen hours a week, with the balance of the time spent dancing, entertaining, and visiting family and friends.

通常来说，土著人一个星期的工作量不会超过12到19个小时，其它的时间都用在跳舞、消遣及走亲访友上。