TOEFL iBT, Independent Writing, A research center for business or agricultureA -partly rewritten-

Writing Topic

Imagine a university is planning to build a new research center in your country, but it has not been decided whether to create a center for business research or agricultural (faming) research. Which of the two sorts of research centers would you prefer to be built in your country?

 

☆Ideas and Expressions

♦Business

1.    Japan has been one of the biggest economies in the world for a long time mainly due to our strong competitiveness in products. In other words, we have not been good at sales and marketing very much. Now that many manufacturers of other countries outshine ours, it is about time for us to learn more seriously about business. Market research on specific demands of each country, for instance, will help diversify our exports and stabilize export earnings.

 

2.    With enough wealth and technology to help reduce the damage of global warming and environmental destruction, developed countries are expected to shift to a sustainable economy or environmentally friendly economy. To restructure our economy, we need to do more research on related areas such as evaluation of eco-friendly technology businesses.

 

3.    The low food self-sufficiency (40%) is not necessarily dangerous in this global economy. Countries import food from each other. Also, Japan has already been heavily industrialized and adding just another agricultural research center cannot change its economic structure. Moreover, the level of our agricultural research is very high. People come from all over the world to learn from our agriculture and we send experts to countries suffering from food shortage to help develop their farming.

 

♦Agriculture

1.    Japanese agriculture is at crises in general. The age-old problems of Japanese agriculture are very little farmland (90% of the land is mountains and forests), decreasing numbers of farmers and farmhouses, aging, and weakening functions of farming societies caused by industrialization especially after WWII. In addition, traditional sustainable agriculture has been destroyed by the introduction of factory style farming, or single crop farming. Now that restrictions on agribusiness have been lifted and if we join Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which will slash or abolish tariffs on agricultural products, this trend is certain to be accelerated. Whether we like it or not, we are required to transform our agriculture into one which prioritizes production of export crops, crops that have enough demands in the global market. Research and development on Japanese crops and potential markets for them, both domestic and international, should be put forth an effort for right now.

 

2.    Research on our low self-sufficiency (40 %) is necessary. The self-sufficiency of our staple food, rice, is 100% while most of the feed grains for meat production such as wheat and corn are imported. Since these crops will be in great demand for bio-fuel, research on more self-sufficient protein production is necessary. In addition, the decreasing number of farmhouses is causing concern about food shortage in case of emergency. It is true that the problem of low self-sufficiency is the problem of business―deflation is making people give up farming―and politics―prioritizing business and globalization over agriculture and tradition, but approaches to improve the situation by those who are directly involved in farming would be effective and innovative.

 

3.    We have not eliminated hunger-related deaths in poor countries, yet. Also, population increase, global warming, and pollution can cause food crises in the near future. Developed countries are required to make more contribution to research on food security such as irrigation, plants more resistant to climate change, or genetically modified crops. Japan can live up to this expectation by continuing to offer our high-level agricultural techniques and technologies. For example, plant factory, which was invented and developed in Japan, can produce edible plants without soil all through the year. We can not only sell their produce but also export the factories and their software. Also, biomass-energy, an alternative energy resource receiving particular attention, is our specialty.

 

☆Essay for ideas and expressions

Just a few years ago, the terms green or fair trade meant nothing more than opportunities for corporate image improvement to most huge corporations and never meant calls for total restructuring of the economic system, or more precisely so they pretended to interpret them. They had succeeded in propaganda to make people believe that all things were going all right. However, climate change has started biting and corruption in business has become blatant, even the people in developed countries are now having difficulty in making ends meet, and the mass protests across the globe do not go unnoticed anymore. Studies for new economic systems on both international and domestic levels are essential to earnestly tackle fundamental problems of our times. Therefore, I would prefer a new business research center to be built if a university is planning to build a new research center in my country, Japan.

 

Researches on alternative economic systems are crucial. It is now clear that capitalism or free market system is harmful to everyone including those who have enjoyed its benefits. It has exploited the resources and people in the third world. It has widened the gap between the rich and the poor both internationally and domestically. Especially in the USA, the leading capitalist country, the gap reached the 1 to 99 ratio. It has also destroyed the environment, whose deterioration now threatens all life on earth. Ideas for more natural and humane economic activities, which ordinary people as well as conscientious intellectuals have conceived probably since the onset of industrialization, should be crystallized. One of the examples of such effort is a system called employee ownership or democratization of corporations. Democratized companies will reflect public consensus and make more sensible decisions. They might encourage governments to promote real fair trade: fair transactions not just between companies but between countries. They would certainly stop outsourcing, which is good for domestic workers. Also, they may well support sustainable economy, which is good for the environment. Public awareness on the environmental issues is quite high. For instance, 70 % of US citizens now support green energy.

 

In the torrent of economic globalization, Japan is at the crossroads. Joining Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) will lead it to totally American type economy, which has just proved to be a failure in terms of the welfare of all people. Obviously the disadvantaged, who are already suffering enough, will suffer more. Also, even if Japan survives as a country, taking advantage of its position as a developed country, the problem of morality will remain, for free trade works at the expense of the weaker. It is inevitable for us to put more pressure on poor people in developing countries. Moreover, it has become clear that the corruption of the domestic economic system has already passed the point of meltdown. The misconduct in relation to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant symbolizes that Japan has not been so much a protective economy as it has been believed. Japanese people were made to accept nuclear power plants through sophisticated advertisements of Japanese mass media backed up by the US energy industry and US and Japanese governments. The industry neglected design upgrade despite repeated warnings. After the disaster, the electric company and the government did not disclose crucial information, and the government did not take enough measures to protect the residents in the area, and probably the whole population in the eastern part of Japan. The irresponsible economic leaders teaming up with political leaders could make the last 50 years of Japanese prosperity, where most people, rich or poor, enjoyed fundamental human rights and basic happiness of life, just a transient good moment of its history.

 

It might be true that competition promotes evolution of technology and systems, but the current system does not have a safety net strong enough to protect those who have lost in competition and those who are disadvantaged from the beginning. Governments are manipulated by lobbyists from large corporations, so that channeling money to rescue the weak gets harder and harder. Also, the stock market, a world-scale casino for the rich, does not have a structure to give it decency to clean up its own mess. When crises occur, public money is used to make up for the loss and the return is not sufficient when those rescued start gaining profits again―unemployment rates won’t go down much despite record profits of those US companies bailed out in the recent financial meltdown, for instance. This system keeps siphoning large amounts of money from the poor to the rich.

 

Suggestions on plans for rapid and less painful shift to the new economic system are what university should make now to build a society that protects dignity and better human nature and that protects the environment.