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?

A major global market worth billions of dollars,
food
import and export
has
Correct subject-verb agreement
have
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an extreme impact on both local producers and the environment. With the growing demand for cheaper yet more exotic foods, the damage
this
generates will only continue to worsen. I feel that it is our ethical duty to attempt to minimise our contribution to said damage. One need only glance at any supermarket aisle and a cornucopia of exotic goods lay before us to make any culinary delight which may take our fancy.
This
veritable endless supply of global products is made possible thanks to innovations in the processing industry which
has
Correct subject-verb agreement
have
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allowed for mass production, shelf-life extension, and - perhaps most significantly – cheaper prices for consumers. It is a tragic fact that the lion’s share of shoppers give little regard to where their
food
has come from, or what harm it is causing. To answer
this
ever-growing call for cut-price produce, companies are turning to factory farming and the exploitation of animals and developing countries at an alarming rate. A pertinent example of
this
is the current obsession with quinoa; once a little-known foodstuff, it became the darling of the
health conscious
Add a hyphen
health-conscious
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and big businesses nearly overnight. The pressure to increase output from farms in its native Peru and Bolivia meant that many native farmers were forced to work unimaginably long hours for very little profit, and their arable land was decimated by over-farming. We must
also
pause to consider the additional impact of factory farming – the practice of
mass rearing
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mass-rearing
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livestock for meat or dairy products – has on the environment. Livestock is one of the biggest contributors to climate change in both
production
Correct article usage
the production
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of greenhouse gasses
,
Correct word choice
and, destruction
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destruction
Correct article usage
the destruction
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of forests for grazing land and transportation. The combination of neglect for sustainable agriculture and the upsurge in livestock breeding will take generations for the land to recover from. So, what can we do to mitigate the damage our
consumer driven
Add a hyphen
consumer-driven
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lifestyle is causing? The very obvious answer is that we limit our consumption of globally sourced products in favour of locally produced
food
.
This
has a variety of benefits for shoppers in that local vendors usually offer healthier, organic
food
which is free from the
longevity extending
Add a hyphen
longevity-extending
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chemicals found in imported goods, and fresh ingredients of course taste much better than their processed counterparts. Another added plus is that by spending your money close to home, it is going directly into your local economy which will directly boost the surrounding neighbourhood and support domestic industry,
while
simultaneously reducing your carbon footprint.
It is clear that
more environmentally conscious purchases would be most advantageous, unlikely though it is consumers will completely overturn their current shopping habits. It is imperative that we encourage the consumption of locally grown
food
where possible in order to slow the environmental harm we are doing.

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Include an introduction and conclusion

A conclusion is essential for IELTS writing task 2. It is more important than most people realise. You will be penalised for missing a conclusion in your IELTS essay.

The easiest paragraph to write in an essay is the conclusion paragraph. This is because the paragraph mostly contains information that has already been presented in the essay – it is just the repetition of some information written in the introduction paragraph and supporting paragraphs.

The conclusion paragraph only has 3 sentences:

  • Summary
  • Restatement of thesis
  • Prediction or recommendation

Example:

To summarize, a robotic teacher does not have the necessary disciple to properly give instructions to students and actually works to retard the ability of a student to comprehend new lessons. Therefore, it is clear that the idea of running a classroom completely by a machine cannot be supported. After thorough analysis on this subject, it is predicted that the adverse effects of the debate over technology-driven teaching will always be greater than the positive effects, and because of this, classroom teachers will never be substituted for technology.

Start your conclusion with a linking phrase. Here are some examples:

  • In conclusion
  • To conclude
  • To summarize
  • Finally
  • In a nutshell
  • In general

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