Prompt: Nowadays, food travels thousands of miles from the farm to the consumer. Is it a positive or a negative development?

Nowadays, as the modern civilization takes place, a model of supplying directly from the farm to supermarkets in the cities has formed. To my view, despite the benefits it offers to people, it is still largely a negative development. Ċ It is true that there are many advantages brought to city people by this development. People are presented with more diversified choices constituted by food from all over the world. Take cherries as an example, people do not have to travel thousands of miles to enjoy those in the farm. Thus the benefit of convenience can be enjoyed. Also, as the environment in metropolitans is greatly polluted, people, by doing so, are still able to enjoy pollution-free vegetables. This prevents pollution to exert further effects into people's diet. Ċ However, there are tradeoffs to these benefits. First, with thousands of miles of travelling, fruits and vegetables can hardly be kept fresh without chemical additives which could cause serious harm to human body. Even worse, in order to prevent vegetables from corruption, some farmers crop them days before maturation, causing a large proportion of nutrition to be lost. Ċ Second, increased use of transportation means could worsen the existing environmental problems. More specifically, fuel that cars and airplanes use contributes greatly towards Global Warming by releasing carbon dioxide into the air every time it is burned. Eventually, in the long-term, there would be no pollution free site even in the countryside. Ċ To conclude, although supplying food directly from farm exerts some obvious benefits especially to city people, these benefits, in the long term, does not seem to justify its costs and threats it brings.