Today’s Food Travels Thousands of Miles Before It Reaches Customers.

Dominic Cole’s IELTS Blog www.dcielts.com Today’s food travels thousands of miles before it reaches customers. Is this a positive or negative trend? In the modern world, we frequently no longer rely on food that has been grown locally, but we have become accustomed to buying produce from all over the world. While this trend has some clear benefits to consumers, I would argue that overall transporting food over long distances is a negative. The strongest argument against importing food is environmental. Studies have shown that transport and the use of fossil fuels is one of the leading causes of global warming and climate change. This means that if we want to lead a greener lifestyle, we should be trying to minimise transport and this includes the unnecessary transport of foodstuffs. Another point that needs to be considered is the impact of transporting food on local farmers and traditional ways of life. Again, there is good research to show that farmers and smallholders are unable to compete in price with the supermarkets that import cheap, and often low-quality, produce from abroad. This is not just a problem for local farmers who are likely to go out of business, it also has an impact on weakening traditional communities that rely on those farms for employment and trade. A further consideration is that food that has travelled across the world is considerably less healthy than locally grown, fresh produce. The simple point is that the further food travels before it reaches the consumer, the less fresh it will be and any nutritionist will confirm that fresh food is fuller of vitamins. Therefore, it would be preferable if supermarkets and other stores did not transport food from other countries. In conclusion, I believe that the trend for transporting food over long distances is undesirable because it is environmentally unfriendly, threatens local communities and results in less healthy options for the consumer. (294 words)