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Should our food come from thousands of miles away?
Topic Rating: 5 Topic Rating: 5 Topic Rating: 5 Topic Rating: 5 Topic Rating: 5 Topic Rating: 5 (1 votes) 
Tags: age traveltransport international food consumerismglobalizationtrade businessagriculture economy healthfarming
February 26, 2012
2:32 am
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Today’s food travels thousands of miles before it reaches customers. Why is this? Is this a positive or negative trend?

Nowadays, an increasing number of food items offered in supermarkets are imported. Sometimes even quite ordinary food has travelled huge distances. I will explore the reasons for this tendency and discuss its benefits and drawbacks.

While delicacy and spices have been internationally traded for centuries, today’s global trade with low transportation costs and fewer trade barriers has encouraged importing food in large quantities. In some places even everyday items and inexpensive food like pasta or vinegar can be imported cheaper than being produced locally. Consequently, supermarkets take advantage of this development.

However, imported food comes at a high price for consumers, the local agriculture and the environment. First of all, some food will lose flavour and freshness when travelling by ship for weeks. For example fruit has to be shipped before fully ripe or additional preservatives have to be added to food. Secondly, local farmers may not be able to compete with the low cost of imported food. They will go out of business or stop growing local fruit or vegetable species at all. This can lead to less local variety in food offered. Additionally, the transportation itself is harmful to the environment as it uses fossil fuels. For all of these reasons a quite vocal “local food” movement has formed in recent years trying to promote and preserve food quality and local grown food.

It can be argued that imported food benefits consumers with low prices and more choice. Supermarkets can choose the least expensive supplier worldwide and offer food at a lower price to their customers. Importing food also enables them to offer more choices, like exotic fruits and international food, to their customers. For example, in some countries it would be impossible to sell most kind of fresh fruits and vegetables in winter at all if they were not imported.

All in all I think it is worth preserving local food and one should restrict importing foods to products unavailable like delicacy and unseasonable fruits. It will not be easy to reverse this trend, but if consumers choose local food over imported, it can help to make supermarkets decide to offer more local food again.

February 26, 2012
4:12 am
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Hello Katiss

You have been busy! Have you an exam coming up soon?

This is another great essay. If you can write this in 40 minutes (the time recommended for Task 2 in IELTS), then that's really good - but it's tough to write 380 words in well-organized paragraphs without many errors.

I pasted the essay into the two links at the top of the page (http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp and http://www.read-able.com/: See under 'Useful Links'): the essay is 380 words long, with an average sentence length of just over 16 words. 

I have a couple of suggestions. In the introduction, I would make the thesis sentence more specific or more related to the topic. You wrote:

I will explore the reasons for this tendency and discuss its benefits and drawbacks.

This sentence could be used in many essays, and many students try to memorize sentences like this. You could make it more specific by adding some information about the topic:

  • I will explore the background to this incredible variety of food and discuss its benefits and drawbacks.
  • I will ask if this astonishing diversity of food comes at a high price.
  • This essay will examine some of the issues surrounding the global trade in food.
  • I will ask if we need such a range of food from across the world and suggest that local food is usually better. 

In Paragraph 2, I would change the word 'delicacy' to plural -  'delicacies.'  The reference in the final sentence in paragraph 2 is a little unclear: what is 'this development'? How do supermarkets take advantage of it?

 

I love the topic sentence in Paragraph 3:

However, imported food comes at a high price for consumers, the local agriculture and the environment. 

It is a perfect signpost for the rest of the paragraph. There is an example given for consumers (imported food is not fresh), for local agriculture (farmers can't compete) and the environment (pollution from transport).

In the conclusion I would change the word 'delicacy' again to 'delicacies' and I would replace 'unseasonable' fruits with out-of-season or something else. Unseasonable has a negative feeling, like unexpectedly bad weather. 

Otherwise, a really good - and interesting -  essay!

February 27, 2012
3:14 am
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For me handwriting is so much harder than typing (and rewriting).

Getting faster but  still takes me more than 40 minutes.

I have been warned against using "This essay"...  or we in the topic sentence. 

February 27, 2012
3:28 am
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Yes, I wish typing was allowed in IELTS. It's painful to write by hand for an hour, and doesn't allow edits or reorganization.

I wouldn't worry too much about using "This essay will..." in the topic sentence. It's a little formulaic - and a little silly considering the essay is only supposed to be 250 words long. It would make more sense in a longer paper.

However, I don't see any problem with "we" in the topic sentence. It's an opinion essay, and using 'we' is one way of trying to get the user on your side. It's not dry-as-dust academic writing - it's supposed to be an opinion essay, as I said, not research. 

Thanks for your essays so far, and your comments. When is your test?

February 27, 2012
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I will be taking it end of march.

I tried last november, but only got 7 in writing.

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