IELTS TASK 2: imported food trend.  Why is this?  Is it positive or negative?

Today's food travels thousands of miles before it reaches customers. Why is this? Is this a positive or negative trend?

Imported food is becoming more and more common in daily life. There are various reasons for this trend, which will be introduced in this essay. While the process of importing food can be harmful to some extent, I take the view that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

The main reasons of imported food are demands, globalisation and technology advancement. It is evident that supplies are fuelled by demands. Different types of food overseas are required by consumers. Globalisation and technology improvements facilitate this process. There are less trade barriers under global businesses and air shipping accelerates the logistics.

It is undeniable that imported food is detrimental to the environment. The increasing fossil fuel used for shipping is a significant cause of global warming. It is crucial to minimise the unnecessary pollution generated by transporting food for thousands of miles.

There are, however, more advantages of imported food. The diversity of food is proliferated. People have more choices to buy international products rather than to consume only the local one. It is considerably convenient for people to enjoy off-season fruits and vegetables. For example, by importing, tropical fruits and vegetables are available to consumers who are in winter. Apart from that, materials which are only produced in certain area become assessable around the world. For example, consumers now are able to purchase Thai curry paste in supermarket and cook Thai cuisine. Lastly, the trend of importing food promotes national economy of countries who export. Exported food can be a major industry in some nations. Employments are promising due to the need of labour as well. Take Columbia as an example, profits generated from coffee accounts for a great proportion of GDP.

In conclusion, imported food becomes prevalent for reasons. Though there is a negative effect of transporting food over a long distance, I believe the benefits exceed the drawbacks.

Word count: 307

Thanks!

Isabelle, this is a good essay. Your ideas on the matter are quite clear and presents an understanding of the reasons why food has to travel so far before it reaches it clients. You were able to present valid reasons for this situation and really devoted a tremendous amount of essay space to it. However, it took up so much of the essay discussion that you forgot to discuss the positive or negative trend aspect of the food situation. I believe you got it confused with the advantages and drawbacks, which is a totally different kind of discussion.

When one speaks of the negative and positive trends of an issue, it looks at the reasons as to why such an occurrence is helpful or not to a society. In the case of food travel, you should have had other considerations other than the globalized market and demand for food products overseas. You might have considered how the travel time of food affects its quality and most importantly, the local market that the food is taken away from for marketing overseas or in other parts of the country.

Therefore, to properly discuss this essay, you should have allowed for the proper discussion development of the topic in relation to the way it affects the local market. If there is a big market for a certain product overseas, it becomes more expensive for the local market to access the same food product because most of the stocks are sent to the other market places, often leaving the original market with little to no access to the product. So that is one of the negative trends that you could have discussed in the essay.

As far as the positive trend goes, the market for local products is widened once it is introduced to other larger markets. Therefore, it becomes advantageous for the business owner to continue growing and marketing his products. It is a financial gain for the business owner and economy of the country. Your example using the coffee export of Columbia is a perfect example of this positive trend.

Now, as far as I am concerned, the conclusion of your essay is not correct because you did not accurately respond to the last aspect of the provided prompt. Should you wish to revise the essay to adhere more towards the positive and negative trends of the food issue, then maybe the essay will not only improve, but also gain a higher score :-)