IELTS Task 2 Sample Answer 28 - The food travels thousands of miles from farm to consumer. Some people think it would be better for our environment and economy if people ate only locally produced food. Do you think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

Food is an indispensable factor for the survival of a living being. In some situations, the food needs to be transported over long distances in order to reach the consumer from the actual area of their production. However, there is a group of people who believe that it would be beneficial for the environment as well as the economy if people only consumed food produced locally. I believe such a move of consuming only locally produced food has more benefits than demerits. Firstly, when food needs to be transported across places, a lot of packing materials are required in order to safely transport the products which in turn requires a lot of resources such as paper and plastic wrappers. Once the food is transported to the desired location all these packing materials are discarded to the environment leading to waste accumulation and landfills. This triggers a lot of environmental issues like pollution and resource depletion. But, if the local agricultural produce is preferred for consumption such issues can be avoided to a large extent. Moreover, if the people depend only on locally produced food for their consumption naturally the demand would rise which would in turn lead to increased productions of food. This would benefit the local farmers as it helps them to earn a better income for their produce. In addition, the consumers can also purchase the products at a competitive price which otherwise would be dearer if bought from outside the state or country due to added costs of freight charges and various duties. However, one significant disadvantage of only depending on local food is that the choice available to people in terms of varieties would be limited as some products are specific to certain origins and cannot be produced everywhere. This limits the opportunity of people from tasting food which are not locally available. To conclude, a vital component required in all stages of life is food. These days food has been transported for miles in order to cater to the demand. But if this demand can be satisfied by producing and consuming food locally, it would bring a lot of advantages to the environment and economy of that country despite a few negligible drawbacks.