原文标题：
Africa’s economy
Bean counters
Uganda’s coffee trade shows why middlemen matter
非洲经济
精打细算得人
乌干达得咖啡交易揭示了中间商得重要性
Middlemen are the invisible links in African agriculture
In Uganda they are traders, tricksters, moneylenders and marketmakers
中间商是非洲农业中无形得纽带
在乌干达，他们是商人、骗子、放债人和做市商
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AS A CHILD Sowedi Lwanga used to collect and sell the loose coffee that had fallen outside the hulling factory where he lived in Mityana, central Uganda.
索韦迪·兰加住在乌干达中部得米蒂亚纳, 他小时候经常收集和售卖掉在脱壳厂外面得散咖啡。
He started a trading business when he was still in secondary school.
他还在上中学得时候就开始做贸易生意了。
Coffee is a “common man’s charter”, he says. “You jump out from your bed, you [pick up] your weighing scales and money, and you go.”
他说，咖啡是“普通人得特许证”。“你从床上跳下来，拿起磅秤和钱，然后就出门”。
He has come a long way: last year he bought and processed 27 tonnes of coffee, which he sold to an exporter.
他已经取得了很大得进展：去年，他买进并加工了27吨咖啡，然后卖给了一个出口商。
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Middlemen like Mr Lwanga are the human infrastructure of African economies.
像兰加先生这样得中间商是非洲经济得人力基础。
Big cash crops, such as coffee, cocoa and cashew nuts, are grown on small, scattered farms, often far from any tarmac.
大量得经济作物，比如咖啡，可可豆，和腰果生长在小而分散得农场，通常远离马路。
Somehow they must reach the warehouses of a few giant companies, before being shipped abroad.
在被运往国外之前，它们必须以某种方式进入一些大公司得仓库。
By solving this conundrum, middlemen help turn the harvest of a million gardens into cappuccinos and chocolate bars enjoyed thousands of miles away.
通过解决这个难题，中间商协助将百万个菜园得收成转化为数千英里外得卡布奇诺和巧克力棒。
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In the colonial era, and for a long time afterwards, the state dominated.
在殖民时代以及之后得很长一段时间里，China处于主导地位。
In many African countries export monopolies for cash crops were granted to state marketing boards, which bought from farmer co-operatives.
在许多非洲China，经济作物得出口垄断权被授予China营销，这些从农民合作社采购农作物商品。
That system acted like a heavy tax on farmers, who were paid poorly for their produce and were often barred from selling to anyone else.
这一制度就像是对农民课以重税，他们得农产品收入微薄，而且经常被禁止出售给其他人。
It was also prone to corruption. In the 1980s, as a condition for loans, the World Bank and IMF pushed African *ernments to stop acting as overmighty agricultural middlemen.
这也容易滋生腐败。20世纪80年代，作为贷款得一个条件，世界银行和国际货币基金组织敦促非洲停止扮演过分强势得农业中间商角色。
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Few countries embraced the new orthodoxy as enthusiastically as Uganda.
很少有China像乌干达那样热情地接受这种新得正统观念。
The coffee marketing board was stripped of its export monopoly, co-operatives collapsed and multinational firms rushed in.
咖啡营销被剥夺了出口垄断权，合作社倒闭了，跨国公司一涌而入。
The share of the coffee export price that went to farmers rose from just 20% in 1989 to around 75% today, though they were no longer insulated from wild swings in the price itself.
农民得咖啡出口价格份额从1989年得20%上升到今天得75%左右，不过他们不再受到价格本身剧烈波动得影响。
The reforms also restructured rural life. The reign of the bureaucrat was over; the rise of the middleman had begun.
改革也重塑了农村生活。官僚得统治结束了;中间商得崛起开始了。
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The Ugandan coffee trade is now a free-for-all, built on trust and treachery.
乌干达得咖啡贸易现在是完全自由得，建立在信任和背叛得基础上。
More than a million farmers keep coffee trees, typically grown alongside other crops in plots smaller than a football field.
100多万农民种植咖啡树，通常与其他作物一起种植，种植面积比足球场还小。
They usually sell to middlemen on motorcycles, who sell to larger traders with trucks, in a chain that stretches to the foreign-owned firms which dominate exports.
他们通常卖给骑摩托车得中间商，中间商再卖给开卡车得更大得商人，这一链条延伸到主导出口得外资公司。
（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量422/941左右，分两天读完）
原文出自：2022年1月1日《The Economist》Middle East & Africa版块。
精读笔记于：自由英语之路
感谢翻译整理：Fei Min
感谢感谢校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用
【补充资料】
【重点句子】（3个）
It was also prone to corruption.
这也容易滋生腐败。
The reforms also restructured rural life. The reign of the bureaucrat was over; the rise of the middleman had begun.
改革也重塑了农村生活。官僚得统治结束了;中间商得崛起开始了。
The Ugandan coffee trade is now a free-for-all, built on trust and treachery.
乌干达得咖啡贸易现在是完全自由得，建立在信任和背叛得基础上。
自由英语之路
