Ensuring Our Future Food Supply IELTS Reading: Vocabulary & Answer Key

The world is facing a paradox: while the population is booming, the diversity of the foods we eat is in sharp decline. The reading passage Ensuring Our Future Food Supply takes learners behind the scenes of seed banks like Heritage Farm, where “heirloom plants” are preserved to combat global climate change and disease. Through this passage, you will practice identifying the writer’s views (True/False/Not Given) and completing notes (Note Completion)—question types that require exceptionally precise data scanning and synonym matching.

Reading Passage

[A] Climate change and new diseases threaten the limited varieties of seeds we depend on for food. Luckily, we still have many of the seeds used in the past-but we must take steps to save them. Six miles outside the town of Decorah, Iowa in the USA, an 890-acre stretch of rolling fields and woods called Heritage Farm is letting its crops go to seed. Everything about Heritage Farm is in stark contrast to the surrounding acres of intensively farmed fields of corn and soybean that are typical of modern agriculture. Heritage Farm is devoted to collecting rather than growing seeds. It is home to the Seed Savers Exchange, one of the largest non government-owned seed banks in the United States.

[B] In 1975 Diane Ott Whealy was given the seedlings of two plant varieties that her great grandfather had brought to America from Bavaria in 1870: Grandpa Ott’s morning glory and his German Pink tomato. Wanting to preserve similar traditional varieties, known as heirloom plants, Diane and her husband, Kent, decided to establish a place where the seeds of the past could be kept and traded. The exchange now has more than 13,000 members, and the many thousands of heirloom varieties they have donated are kept in its walk-in coolers, freezers, and root cellars.

[C] “Each year our members list their seeds in this,” Diane Ott Whealy says, handing over a copy of the Seed Savers Exchange 2010 Yearbook. It is as thick as a big-city telephone directory, with page after page of exotic beans, garlic, potatoes, peppers, apples, pears, and plums-each with its own name and personal history. For example, there’s an Estonian Yellow Cherry tomato, which was brought to the seed bank by “an elderly Russian lady” who lived in Tallinn, and a Persian Star garlic from “a bazaar in Samarkand.”

[D] Heirloom vegetables have become fashionable in the United States and Europe over the past decade, prized by a food movement that emphasizes eating locally and preserving the flavor and uniqueness of heirloom varieties. Heirloom varieties have been squeezed out of supermarkets in favor of modern single-variety fruits and vegetables bred to ship well and have a uniform appearance, not to enhance flavor. But the movement goes way beyond tasty food; it’s also a campaign to protect the world’s future food supply. Most people give little thought to where their food comes from. We’ve been hearing for some time about the loss of flora and fauna in our rainforests. Very little, by contrast, is being said about the parallel decline in the diversity of the foods we eat.

[E] Food variety extinction is happening all over the world – and it’s happening fast. In the United States an estimated 90 percent of historic fruit and vegetable varieties are no longer grown. Of the 7,000 different apple varieties that were grown in the 1800s, fewer than a hundred remain. In China 90 percent of the wheat varieties cultivated just a hundred years ago have disappeared. Experts estimate that in total we have lost more than 50 percent of the world’s food varieties over the past century.

[F] Why is this a problem? Because if disease or future climate change affects one of the handful of plants we’ve come to depend on, we might desperately need one of those varieties we’ve let become extinct. A fungus called Ug99, which was first identified in Uganda in 1999, is spreading across the world’s wheat crops. Roughly 90 percent of the world’s wheat has no defense against this particular fungus. If it reached the USA, an estimated one billion dollars’ worth of crops would be at risk. Scientists believe that in Asia and Africa alone, the portion currently in danger could leave one billion people without their primary food source. A famine with significant humanitarian consequences could follow.

[G] The population of the world is expected to reach nine billion by 2045. Some experts say we’ll need to double our food production to keep up with this growth. Given the added challenge of climate change and disease, it is becoming ever more urgent to find ways to increase food yield. Yet the best hope for securing our food’s future may depend on our ability to preserve the locally cultivated foods of the past.

Questions 1-7

Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage? In boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet, write:

TRUE if the statement agrees with the views of the writer

FALSE if the statement contradicts the views of the writer

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

1. Heritage Farm is different from most other nearby farms.

2. Most nongovernment-owned seed banks are bigger than Seed Savers Exchange.

3. Diane Ott Whealy’s grandfather taught her a lot about seed varieties.

4. The seeds people give to the Seed Savers Exchange are stored outdoors.

5. Diane and her husband choose which heirloom seeds to grow on Heritage Farm.

6. The seeds are listed in alphabetical order in The Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook.

7. The Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook describes how each seed was obtained.

Questions 8-13

Complete the notes below. Choose ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.

The food we grow and eat

Supermarkets

• sell fruit and vegetables that transport well

• want fruit and vegetables to be standard in their 8. _______________

Public awareness

• while people know about plants disappearing from 9. _______________, very few know about the decline in fruit and vegetable varieties.

Extinction of food varieties

• less than 100 of the types of 10. _______________ once available in the USA are still grown.

• over 11. _______________ percent of food varieties around the world have disappeared in the last 100 years.

Current problems in food production

• a particular fungus is attacking wheat in various countries.

• Rick Ward believes the threat to food supplies in Asia and Africa might lead to a 12. _______________.

Food production in the future

• climate change and disease may put pressure on food production.

• twice the amount of food may be needed because of an increase in 13. _______________.

Complete Vietnamese Translation of the Reading Passage

[Passage A] Climate change and new diseases threaten the limited varieties of seeds we depend on for food. Luckily, we still have many of the seeds used in the past – but we must take steps to save them. Six miles outside the town of Decorah, Iowa in the USA, an 890-acre stretch of rolling fields and woods called Heritage Farm is letting its crops go to seed. Everything about Heritage Farm is in stark contrast to the surrounding acres of intensively farmed fields of corn and soybean that are typical of modern agriculture. Heritage Farm is devoted to collecting rather than growing seeds. It is home to the Seed Savers Exchange, one of the largest non-government-owned seed banks in the United States.

[Passage B] In 1975 Diane Ott Whealy was given the seedlings of two plant varieties that her great-grandfather had brought to America from Bavaria in 1870: Grandpa Ott’s morning glory and his German Pink tomato. Wanting to preserve similar traditional varieties, known as heirloom plants, Diane and her husband decided to establish a place where the seeds of the past could be kept and traded. The exchange now has more than 13,000 members, and the many thousands of heirloom varieties they have donated are kept in its walk-in coolers, freezers, and root cellars.

[Passage C] “Each year our members list their seeds in this,” Diane Ott Whealy says, handing over a copy of the Seed Savers Exchange 2010 Yearbook. It is as thick as a big-city telephone directory, with page after page of exotic beans, garlic, potatoes, peppers, apples, pears, and plums—each with its own name and personal history. For example, there’s an Estonian Yellow Cherry tomato, which was brought to the seed bank by “an elderly Russian lady” who lived in Tallinn, and a Persian Star garlic from “a bazaar in Samarkand.”

[Passage D] Heirloom vegetables have become fashionable in the United States and Europe over the past decade, prized by a food movement that emphasizes eating locally and preserving the flavor and uniqueness of heirloom varieties. Heirloom varieties have been squeezed out of supermarkets in favor of modern single-variety fruits and vegetables bred to ship well and have a uniform appearance, not to enhance flavor. But while we hear a lot about the loss of flora and fauna in our rainforests, very little is said about the parallel decline in the diversity of the foods we eat.

[Passage E] Food variety extinction is happening all over the world – and it’s happening fast. In the United States, an estimated 90 percent of historic fruit and vegetable varieties are no longer grown. Of the 7,000 different apple varieties that were grown in the 1800s, fewer than a hundred remain. In China, 90 percent of the wheat varieties cultivated just a hundred years ago have disappeared. Experts estimate that in total we have lost more than 50 percent of the world’s food varieties over the past century.

[Passage F] Why is this a problem? Because if disease or future climate change affects one of the handful of plants we’ve come to depend on, we might desperately need one of those varieties we’ve let become extinct. A fungus called Ug99, which was first identified in Uganda in 1999, is spreading across the world’s wheat crops. Roughly 90 percent of the world’s wheat has no defense against this particular fungus, which could lead to a catastrophic famine in Asia and Africa.

[Passage G] The population of the world is expected to reach nine billion by 2045. Some experts say we’ll need to double our food production to keep up with this growth. Given the added challenge of climate change and disease, it is becoming ever more urgent to find ways to increase food yield. Yet the best hope for securing our food’s future may depend on our ability to preserve the locally cultivated foods of the past.

Academic Vocabulary Summary

• Intensively farmed (phrase): Cultivated intensively on a large or industrial scale.

• Stark contrast (phrase): A complete and striking difference.

• Heirloom plants (n): Traditional plant varieties preserved over generations, unaffected by industrial breeding.

• Walk-in coolers (n): Large refrigerated rooms that people can walk into.

• Uniform appearance (phrase): A consistent, standardized look.

• Flora and fauna (n): Plant and animal life.

• Thrived (v): Grew and developed successfully or vigorously.

• Fungus (n): A spore-producing organism such as molds and mildews.

• Famine (n): Extreme and widespread scarcity of food.

• Yield (n): Agricultural production or output.

Answers & Detailed Explanations

Questions 1-7: True/False/Not Given

1. TRUE: Heritage Farm is different from nearby farms. (Passage A: “stark contrast to the surrounding acres… Heritage Farm is devoted to collecting rather than growing seeds.”)

2. FALSE: Most non-government-owned seed banks are bigger than SSE. (Passage A: “one of the largest non government-owned seed banks” – This means it belongs to the top tier, so most others are smaller).

3. NOT GIVEN: Diane’s grandfather taught her a lot about seed varieties. (Passage B only mentions that her grandfather brought seeds from Bavaria and she received seedlings; it does not state whether he “taught” her anything).

4. FALSE: Seeds are stored outdoors. (Passage B: “kept in its walk-in coolers, freezers, and root cellars” – All locations are indoors/refrigerated underground rooms).

5. NOT GIVEN: Diane and her husband choose which heirloom seeds to grow. (Passage B states they established a place for keeping and trading seeds, but does not mention criteria for “choosing” seeds to grow).

6. NOT GIVEN: Seeds are listed in alphabetical order. (The reading passage does not mention how the list is organized).

7. TRUE: The yearbook describes how each seed was obtained. (Passage C: “each with its own name and personal history… brought to the seed bank by an elderly Russian lady…”).

Questions 8-13: Note Completion

8. Appearance: Supermarkets want fruits and vegetables to be standard in their appearance (Passage D: “have a uniform appearance”).

9. Rainforests: While people know about plants disappearing from rainforests (Passage D: “loss of flora and fauna in our rainforests”).

10. Apples: Fewer than 100 types of apples once available in the USA are still grown (Passage E: “Of the 7,000 different apple varieties… fewer than a hundred remain”).

11. 50: Over 50 percent of food varieties have disappeared (Passage E: “lost more than 50 percent of the world’s food varieties”).

12. Famine: Threats to food supplies in Asia and Africa might lead to a famine (Passage F: “A famine… could follow”).

13. Population: Twice the amount of food may be needed due to an increase in population (Passage G: “The population… expected to reach nine billion… we’ll need to double our food production”).

In summary, the reading passage Ensuring Our Future Food Supply reminds us that the key to humanity’s future survival may lie right inside the ancient seed pouches preserved from the past. Understanding the contrast between industrial agriculture and conservation agriculture will not only help you excel in Note Completion questions but also master how authors use statistics to build arguments.

This learning material has been compiled by ECE Language Center to help you optimize your Scanning and Paraphrasing skills. Wishing you effective revision and success in achieving your target IELTS Reading band score!