BEST IELTS Academic Reading Test 576

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IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST 576 – PASSAGE – 3

IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST – 576

READING PASSAGE – 3

Growing Skyscrapers: The Rise of Vertical Farms

A. Together the world’s 6.8 billion people use land equal in size to South America to grow food and raise livestock an astounding agricultural footprint. And demographers predict the planet will host 9.5 billion people by 2050. Because each of us requires a minimum of 1,500 calories a day, civilization will have to cultivate another Brazil’s worth of land 2.1 billion acres if farming continues to be practiced as it is today. That much new, arable earth simply does not exist. To quote the great American humourist Mark Twain: “Buy land. They’re not making it anymore.”

B. Agriculture also uses 70 percent of the world’s available freshwater for irrigation, rendering it unusable for drinking as a result of contamination with fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and silt. If current trends continue, safe drinking water will be impossible to come by in certain densely populated regions. Farming involves huge quantities of fossil fuels, too 20 percent of all the gasoline and diesel fuel consumed in the U.S. The resulting greenhouse gas emissions are of course a major concern, but so is the price of food as it becomes linked to the price of fuel, a mechanism that roughly doubled the cost of eating in most places worldwide between 2005 and 2008.

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C. Some agronomists believe that the solution lies in even more intensive industrial farming, carried out by an ever decreasing number of highly mechanized farming consortia that grow crops having higher yields – a result of genetic modification and more powerful agrochemicals. Even if this solution were to be implemented, it is a short-term remedy at best, because the rapid shift in climate continues to rearrange the agricultural landscape, foiling even the most sophisticated strategies. Shortly after the Obama administration took office, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu warned the public that climate change could wipe out farming in California by the end of the century.

D. What is more, if we continue wholesale deforestation just to generate new farmland, global warming will accelerate at an even more catastrophic rate. And far greater volumes of agricultural runoff could well create enough aquatic “dead zones” to turn most estuaries and even parts of the oceans into barren wastelands.

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E. As if all that were not enough to worry about, food borne illnesses account for a significant number of deaths worldwide salmonella, cholera, Escherichia coli and shigella, to name just a few. Even more of problems are life-threatening parasitic infections, such as malaria and schistosomiasis. Furthermore, the common practice of using human feces as a fertilizer in most of Southeast Asia, many parts of Africa, and Central and South America (commercial fertilizers are too expensive) facilitates the spread of parasitic worm infections that afflict 2.5 billion people.

F. Clearly, radical change is needed. One strategic shift would do away with almost every ill just note: grow crops indoors, under rigorously controlled conditions, in vertical farm. Plants grown in high-rise buildings erected on now vacant city lots and in large, multistory rooftop greenhouses could produce food year-round using significantly less water, producing little waste, with less risk of infectious diseases, and no need for fossil-fueled machinery or transport from distant rural farms. Vertical farming could revolutionize how we feed ourselves and the rising population to come. Our meals would taste better, too; “locally grown” would become the norm.

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G. The working descriptions sound outrageous at first. But engineers, urban planners and agronomists who have scrutinized the necessary technologies are convinced that vertical farming is not only feasible but should be tried.

H. Growing our food on land that used to be intact forests and prairies is killing the planet, setting up the processes of our own extinction. The minimum requirement should be a variation of the physician’s credo: “Do no harm.” In this case, do no further harm to the earth. Humans have risen to conquer impossible odds before.

From Charles Darwin’s time in the mid-1800s and forward, with each Malthusian prediction of the end of the world because of a growing population came a series of technological breakthroughs that bailed us out. Farming machines of all kinds, improved fertilizers and pesticides, plants artificially bred for greater productivity and disease resistance, plus vaccines and drugs for common animal diseases all resulted in more food than the rising population needed to stay alive.

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I. That is until the 1980s, when it became obvious that in many places farming was stressing the land well beyond its capacity to support viable crops. Agrochemicals had destroyed the natural cycles of nutrient renewal that intact ecosystems use to maintain themselves. We must switch to agricultural technologies that are more ecologically sustainable.

J. As the noted ecologist Howard Odum reportedly observed: “Nature has all the answers, so what is your question?” Mine is: How can we all live well and at the same time allow for ecological repair of the world’s ecosystems? Many climate experts Nations Food and Agriculture environmentalist and 2004 Nobel from officials at the United Organization to sustainable Peace Prize winner Wangari Manthai agree that allowing farmland to revert to its natural grassy or wooded states is the easiest and most direct way to slow climate change. These landscapes naturally absorb carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas, from the ambient air. Leave the land alone and allow it to heal our planet.

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K. Examples abound. The demilitarized zone between South and North Korea, created in 1953 after the Korean War, began as a 2.5-mile-wide strip of severely scarred land but today is lush and vibrant, fully recovered. The once bare corridor separating former East and West Germany is now verdant. The American dust bowl of the 1930s, left barren by overfarming and drought, is once again a highly productive part of the nation’s breadbasket. And all of New England, which was clear-cut at least three times since the 1700s, is home to large tracts of healthy hardwood and boreal forests.

Questions 28-36

Complete the summary of paragraphs A-F.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.

Demographers estimate that the world population would increase significantly. Because the consumption of 28_____ on a daily basis, humans need to bring more land under plough under the current agricultural practices. However, this is difficult to achieve. Agriculture is responsible for the deterioration of drinking water because most of it serves the purpose of 29_____ and the situation is threatening to some 30_____ communities. 31_____ are another drawback entailed by farming because of the emissions. The increase in the food price would greatly influence global food cost.

Some specialists advocate the adoption of more intensive industrial farming for more efficient farming. However, this is a 32_____ since climate changes have a series of negative impacts. New farmland is produced from 33_____ , which would consequently accelerate the increase in the world temperature. More ·unproductive wastelands would be created by much more serious 34_____ . The most serious concern should be paid to 35 contributing significantly to the global mortality rates. Some radical changes could be made in 36_____ which could bring about revolutions in the way we feed ourselves and the coming on-the-rise population.

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Questions 37-40

Do the following statements agree with the information given in PASSAGE? Write

YES if the statement agrees with the information

NO if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

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37. Since Charles Darwin’s time until the 1950s, mankind has managed to survive owing directly to a range of technologies developed for the well-being of us.

38. Agrochemicals were the only factor that upset the ecosystem.

39. The most effective approach to overcoming climate changes is to reconvert the cropped lands into meadow or forest.

40. The efforts to recover the natural landscapes are unsuccessful around the world.

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