Write about the following topic Today food travels from thousands of miles from the farm to the consumer. Some people say that it would be better for the economy & environment if people ate food produced from local farmers. Would the advantages of this idea outweigh the disadvantages?
Sample Response
Nowadays, food travels long distances before reaching consumers, and it is therefore believed that consuming locally grown food would bring about a number of economic and environmental benefits. Despite these potential advantagesDespite some advantages, I believe that the disadvantages of this idea would be more significant.
Consuming locally grown food is advantageous in several ways. First, when produce is purchased and consumed locally, the local economy greatly benefits. More income wouldwill be generated for those involved in the food’s production, including farmers and growers, which will, in turn, improve their standard of livingenhance their standards of living. Eating locally grown food can also play a role in helping to protect the environment. The transportation of food around the world greatly contributes to global warming due to the high level of carbon emissionsthe large amount of carbon emissions produced during the process. Eating locally grown produce will help to reduce the distance that food travels, thereby reducing the negative effectshelping to reduce the negative effects of carbon emissions released by vehicleswhich are released from vehicles during transport.
In spite of the aforementioned benefits, I personally feel that the drawbacks need to be considered more carefully. For example, if non-locally grown foods are purchased less often Deleteon the market, local people will havelocal people will therefore have fewer opportunities to try specialitiesexperience specialties and healthy foodsproducts from other regions. Furthermore, if local foods become the dominant productsthe more dominant products, price manipulation by local merchants can occur. Several food sellers will make use of this opportunity to increase prices to control the market in the long term. It will be difficult for people, especially lower income households, to buy essential foods for themselves, causing adverse impacts on their health.
In conclusion, I hold the belief that local food consumption, despite having economic and environmental merits, does more harm than good to people’s culinary experiences and local markets.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response gives a clear comparative judgement and develops both the economic and environmental benefits and the proposed disadvantages in a coherent, controlled structure. The weaker point is that the claim about local merchants manipulating prices is plausible but somewhat speculative and could be justified more carefully. A more explicit comparison of the scale and likelihood of the competing effects would strengthen the conclusion that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The essay addresses both sides directly, maintains a clear position, and supports its main ideas with relevant explanation.
Compare the relative scale and probability of the benefits and drawbacks more explicitly to substantiate the outweigh judgement.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response is logically sequenced into focused paragraphs, and cohesion is clear throughout.
Reduce slightly mechanical transitions such as the aforementioned benefits and let the logical relationship between sentences carry more of the progression.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied, precise, and well suited to the topic, with only minor awkwardness in a few combinations.
Use more natural phrasing for market availability and dominance, such as become less available and dominate the local market.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of sentence structures is used with strong control and only rare minor slips.
Polish small details such as compound modifiers and avoid unnecessary repetition within complex sentences.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Write about the following topic Today food travels from thousands of miles from the farm to the consumer. Some people say that it would be better for the economy & environment if people ate food produced from local farmers. Would the advantages of this idea outweigh the disadvantages?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.