Eating Locally grown Produce | Writing for Academic IELTS PDF Download

This essay is about locally grown produce and whether people should be encouraged to purchase only from local farms in order to improve the environment and economies. 

Q. Today much of the food people eat gets transported from farms that are thousands of miles away. Some people believe it would be better for the environment and the economy if people only consumed food produced by local farmers. Would the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?

Hint:

• You have to be careful with this question and make sure that you cover all the points that are presented in the prompt. 
• it specifically mentions the environment and the economy so you must make sure you talk about these. If you don't the examiner may decide you have not covered all the parts of the question. 
• Also the prompt is suggesting there are both advantages and disadvantages, so again it is a good ideas to mention both to ensure you have fully answered the question.
• If you think though there are more disadvantages for example, you can present more support for this side as you believe they outweigh (i.e. there are more of them) the advantages.

Sample Answer

• These days food often travels many miles as farmers export their food around the world to satisfy consumer demand. Although some people think stopping this practice would benefit the economy and the environment, I believe that the negative impacts would not justify such a change.
• The benefits of stopping the export of food are twofold. In relation to the environment, transporting food involves the use of thousands of lorries and many flights, which contributes to pollution given all the emissions this must produce everyday. This negatively affects people’s health and also may be leading to global warming. In addition to this, stopping the practice will mean that people then only buy local food, leading to a boost to local economies as farmers will become profitable as they sell more.
• However, there are downsides to this. A problem is that these days many countries, particularly developing countries, rely on exports of their produce. Countries often have acres and acres of plantations and crops that are only sold to foreign markets, and this provides an income to the farmers but it also provides work for thousands of local people around the world working on farms. Furthermore, people these days have become dependent on ingredients from other countries and without it people could no longer cook or eat many of their favourite recipes and many restaurants that depend on food exports may go out of business.
• On balance, I therefore believe that the advantages do not outweigh the disadvantages. Despite the fact that it may improve the environment, the negative economic impacts on farmers who export and their employees and the further impacts on food choices and restaurants would be too detrimental.