Band 8.5 model answer: advantages and disadvantages

A band 8.5 model answer to a real IELTS Writing Task 2 question, with the paragraph plan that fits it. Aim for 250 to 290 words in 40 minutes.

The question

In several countries, vertical farming and indoor agriculture are being promoted as solutions to food shortages caused by shrinking farmland. What are the advantages and disadvantages of relying on this type of farming?

Your 4-paragraph plan

Introduction (40-50 words). Paraphrase the topic and say whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
Body paragraph 1 (80-100 words). The strongest advantage, developed with a concrete example.
Body paragraph 2 (80-100 words). The main disadvantage, developed honestly, then weighed against the advantage.
Conclusion (40-50 words). State your overall judgement: which side wins and why.

The trap in this question type

The question usually asks whether the advantages OUTWEIGH the disadvantages. Answer that comparison directly, not just a list of each.

Band 8.5 model answer

343 words, the length a strong candidate produces in the 40 minutes Task 2 allows (the minimum is 250). Written for this exact question in the official format. Read it once for ideas, then write your own before comparing.

Governments in land-scarce nations are increasingly turning to vertical farming, in which crops are grown in stacked layers inside climate-controlled buildings, as an answer to the loss of arable land to housing and industry. This essay argues that while such farms offer real gains in efficiency and resilience, their heavy energy demands and narrow range of viable crops mean they can only ever be a partial fix. The case for indoor agriculture rests on proximity and control. Singapore, which imports over 90 percent of its food and has almost no spare land, now hosts firms such as Sky Greens growing vegetables in rotating vertical towers within warehouse districts, cutting the distance leafy greens travel before reaching a city supermarket from hundreds of kilometres to a handful. This shortened supply chain reduces spoilage and transport emissions while allowing harvests year round, immune to the typhoons and droughts that regularly damage open fields in the Philippines. Water use also falls sharply, since hydroponic systems recycle moisture rather than losing it to evaporation, an advantage of particular value in drought-prone regions such as California's Central Valley. Set against these gains are drawbacks that are far from trivial. Indoor farms depend on artificial lighting and climate control around the clock, and this electricity load is substantial enough that, unless it is drawn from renewable sources, the carbon savings from shorter transport can be cancelled out entirely. The infrastructure is also costly to build and maintain, so the produce, mostly leafy greens and herbs, tends to sell at two or three times the price of field-grown equivalents, putting it beyond low income households. Most tellingly, staple crops such as wheat, rice and maize, the foods that actually prevent famine, are not economically viable to grow this way, so vertical farming addresses urban food deserts without touching the deeper problem of feeding whole populations. On balance, indoor farming is best understood as a genuine but narrow remedy: valuable for perishable vegetables in water-scarce or land-starved cities, yet incapable of replacing the staple-crop agriculture that food security ultimately depends on.

Why this answer earns band 8.5

The introduction paraphrases the prompt ('crops are grown in stacked layers inside climate-controlled buildings') before stating the thesis, giving the essay clear Task Response framing before any example appears.
The two body paragraphs are deliberately symmetrical, one built entirely around advantages and one entirely around disadvantages, which models a transferable planning structure for any advantages/disadvantages prompt.
The concession 'so vertical farming addresses urban food deserts without touching the deeper problem of feeding whole populations' shows the single position being tested against its strongest counterargument rather than simply listed, which strengthens Coherence and Cohesion.
Lexical choices such as 'not economically viable' and 'cancelled out entirely' replace vaguer alternatives like 'not worth it' or 'undone', showing precise collocation under Lexical Resource.
The construction 'unless it is drawn from renewable sources, the carbon savings... can be cancelled out entirely' uses a conditional clause to express a hedge with grammatical control, illustrating Grammatical Range and Accuracy.

The plan, reusable on any question of this type

Paraphrase the prompt and state a thesis that both advantages and disadvantages will be weighed (~67 words)
Present the advantages of vertical farming using a real example and two supporting points (~116 words)
Present the disadvantages, culminating in the crop-range limitation as the strongest objection (~125 words)
Conclude by restating the balanced position without introducing new recommendations (~35 words)

Phrases worth learning

This essay argues that while	stating a balanced thesis before a two-sided discussion essay
Set against these gains are drawbacks that are far from trivial	pivoting from an advantages paragraph to a disadvantages paragraph
Most tellingly	flagging the single strongest point in a list of supporting reasons
unless it is drawn from renewable sources	introducing a conditional hedge to qualify a claim
is best understood as a genuine but narrow remedy	summarising a nuanced, partial-agreement conclusion on any two-sided issue

This answer includes invented specific detail written to show how detail is used, not to be quoted as fact: the claim that Sky Greens' towers cut travel distance 'from hundreds of kilometres to a handful' (illustrative, not a checked figure). IELTS does not check facts, so this is about the texture, never the claim.