IELTS Writing Task 2/ Essay Topics with sample answer.

IELTS Essay Sample 1116 - A country should try to produce all the food

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IELTS Writing Task 2/ IELTS Essay:

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Some people suggest that a country should try to produce all the food for its population and import as little food as possible.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

You should write at least 250 words.


Sample Answer 1: (Agreement)
Ensuring food adequacy for the entire population has been a major concern for nations throughout the centuries. Some people believe that the government should focus on producing all kinds of food while importing as little as possible to ensure food sufficiency. I firmly believe that producing many kinds of food is an inevitable effort in terms of ensuring the nation’s food security.

Firstly, the more a country relies on imported food, the more food crisis it faces. Food import includes transportation costs, taxation and other charges that eventually increase the food price. To tackle this problem, a government should allocate more budgets to improve national production by maximising the collaboration of research centres with farmers. Related university courses and diploma programmes can create more talented individuals who would be involved in domestic food production. Furthermore, by mass production of all kinds of food items, a country can prepare for the rainy days.

Secondly, by focusing on farming, irrigation and planting, a government can decrease unemployment problems. For example, in Indonesia, the farming sector creates the highest percentage of jobs. More than 50 per cent of Indonesians are directly or indirectly depends on the agriculture sector.

Finally, imported food does not have the same quality and freshness as locally produced food and crops. If food is imported from a long distance, the food value degrades and in some cases, toxic chemicals are used to preserve the imported food. Thus the local production of foods would ensure better food quality and sound health of citizens.

In conclusion, preventing the food crisis, ensuring better food quality and decreasing unemployment could be achieved if a country becomes self-sufficient in its food production. It is expected that countries would emphasize their domestic food production as it gives many competitive advantages over importing.

[Written by - Leonardo Da Vinci Massolo]


Sample Answer 2: (Disagreement)
Every country wants to reduce its dependency on imports while maximising its exports including items such as food and crops. However, not all countries have the same geographic location, weather condition, technology and suitable lands to produce each type of crop the citizens need. This is why a country should focus more on its overall economic growth rather than using manpower and budget to become self-reliant on food.

To commence with, soil, weather condition, available lands, technology and demographics of a county determine what crops, vegetables and fruits it can produce. Not all countries have the same geographical features and manpower, and thus, it is obvious that the country needs to import some of the items. In many cases, this is rather advantageous than producing or growing crops and then harvesting the grains. For instance, it is impossible for an Arab country to produce all types of foods due to its weather condition. If they focus on growing these food items and engage their manpower to do that, their economic growth would be hindered.

Moreover, a country like Germany and China can focus on manufacturing and industrial innovation while import food from other countries. The ultimate outcome is more beneficial for them. However, this might not be the case for a country that solely depends on the agriculture sector and when a majority of its population are already dependant on it. They can focus on improving their productions, but this model is not suitable for industrial countries.

To conclude, I believe that free trade and globalisation have made the world a global village. And with the speedy transportation system, food import cost has already declined. Since fulfilling the mass people's diverse needs for various kinds of food is not feasible for a country, it should focus on its true potential rather than allocating budget and manpower to become self-dependent on food.

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Basil Pallath
Adequacy in food production and food importing are two concerning issues for any country, both for the developing and developed countries. The amount of food a country can produce and the amount of food it has to import from other countries have a direct relationship of its food supply, price and economic development.On the one hand, self-production of food paves the way to control the commodity price effectively. To be more clear, by the indigenous production of cereals and pulses a country can save a significant amount of food material handling costs. It facilitates to control the eatable goods' price locally. Moreover, the public gets products at a reasonable price by the eviction of import duties and levies. Recent 'Farmer Journal' survey pointed that the importing food products cost 40 percent extra of its actual charge on account of other expenses. Finally, locally produced foods have better quality in terms of freshness and food value than the imported foods as imported foods have to travel a long distance before reaching the consumers. Foreign merchants often use preservatives and other chemicals to increase durability and shelf-life of food. Food safety authority's report says that the preservative contents in imported edible products are four times greater than the locally produced food. So food sufficiency of a country brings about many benefits including fair price, better quality, economic development and self-sufficiency. On the contrary, being self-sufficient in all types of food is not possible for all countries. Each country has its unique geographical and environmental features and it might not support the production of all the food items. Moreover, sometimes the quality and demand of imported products are better than the locally produced foods. For instance, dates imported from middle eastern countries are far better than locally produced dates in our country. By and large, by considering the economic, price control and quality benefits, it can be easily understood that each and every effort to become self-sufficient in food is required by a country.