Short answer: Agriculture turns up often in IELTS reading and Task 2, so precise words such as arable, irrigation, subsistence and yield lift your Lexical Resource fast. Each replaces a vague phrase — "farmland", "watering", "small-scale farming", "amount grown" — with the exact term an examiner expects at Band 7.
Food production, land use and farming are recurring IELTS themes: essays ask about organic food, factory farming and whether countries should be self-sufficient, while reading passages regularly explore crop science and rural life.
Because the topic is so predictable, its vocabulary is learnable in advance — and a candidate who writes about a poor harvest, soil degradation or subsistence farming reads as far more precise than one who writes "bad growing" and "small farms".
This guide gives you 30 genuine Band 7+ agriculture words, each with a natural collocation and an example sentence you can adapt.
Why topic vocabulary lifts your Lexical Resource band
In both Writing and Speaking, Lexical Resource is one of four marking criteria, each carrying equal weight — so it is worth a full quarter of your mark on those papers.
The public band descriptors state that Band 7 needs "a sufficient range of vocabulary to allow some flexibility and precision" and the use of "less common lexical items… with some awareness of style and collocation".
Preparing topic language in advance is the most efficient way to meet that standard.
The descriptors reward accuracy, not decoration. A less common word dropped into the wrong collocation — "make a harvest" or "a big irrigation of crops" — reads as reach without control and can lower your band rather than raise it.
That is why every entry below is paired with its natural partners: learn the collocation, not the isolated word. For a structured month of building vocabulary like this across topics, follow our 30-day vocabulary plan.
30 Band 7+ agriculture words
Read down each row for the meaning, then across to the collocation and an example sentence that shows the word doing the job it would do in a real answer.
| Word | Meaning | Collocation / common usage | Example sentence |
|---|---|---|---|
| arable | land suitable for growing crops | arable land, arable farming | Much of the region's arable land has been lost to housing developments. |
| cultivation | the preparation and use of land to grow crops | under cultivation, intensive cultivation | Vast areas of rainforest have been cleared to bring more land under cultivation. |
| irrigation | the artificial supply of water to land | an irrigation system, drip irrigation | Efficient drip irrigation lets farmers grow crops in otherwise arid regions. |
| yield | the quantity of a crop that is produced | crop yield, increase yields | New wheat varieties can significantly increase yields on the same area of land. |
| fertiliser | a substance added to soil to help plants grow | chemical fertiliser, apply fertiliser | The overuse of chemical fertiliser can pollute rivers and groundwater. |
| pesticide | a chemical used to kill crop pests | spray pesticides, pesticide residue | Concern over pesticide residue on food has driven demand for organic produce. |
| subsistence | farming that produces only enough for the farmer's own family | subsistence farming, subsistence agriculture | Millions of people still depend on subsistence farming to survive. |
| livestock | farm animals raised for food or profit | rear livestock, livestock farming | Rearing livestock is responsible for a large share of agricultural emissions. |
| crop rotation | growing different crops in turn to keep soil healthy | practise crop rotation | Practising crop rotation helps restore soil nutrients and control disease. |
| monoculture | the growing of a single crop over a wide area | rely on monoculture | Reliance on monoculture leaves farms exposed to a single pest or disease. |
| harvest | to gather ripe crops; the crops gathered | harvest the crop, a bumper harvest | A prolonged drought ruined the harvest across the entire valley. |
| horticulture | the cultivation of fruit, vegetables and garden plants | commercial horticulture | The mild, wet climate makes the area ideal for commercial horticulture. |
| arid | extremely dry, with very little rainfall | arid land, an arid climate | Drought-resistant seeds allow crops to be grown in arid conditions. |
| fertile | (of soil) capable of producing abundant crops | fertile soil, fertile land | The rich, fertile soil of the floodplain supports two harvests a year. |
| degradation | a decline in the quality of soil or land | soil degradation, land degradation | Intensive farming has accelerated soil degradation across the plains. |
| mechanisation | the replacement of manual labour with machinery | farm mechanisation | Mechanisation has sharply reduced the number of workers needed on farms. |
| pasture | grassland used for grazing animals | graze on pasture, lush pasture | The herd is moved to fresh pasture every few weeks. |
| surplus | an amount produced beyond what is needed | a food surplus, produce a surplus | A record harvest left the country with a grain surplus to export. |
| staple | a basic food that makes up a large part of the diet | a staple crop, a dietary staple | Rice is the staple crop across much of Southeast Asia. |
| drought | a long period of abnormally low rainfall | a severe drought, drought-resistant crops | A severe drought destroyed almost the entire wheat crop. |
| organic | produced without synthetic chemicals | organic farming, organic produce | Organic farming avoids synthetic pesticides and artificial fertilisers. |
| sustainable | able to continue long-term without exhausting resources | sustainable agriculture, sustainable farming | Sustainable agriculture aims to feed people without exhausting the soil. |
| erosion | the gradual wearing away of soil | soil erosion, prevent erosion | Planting hedgerows helps prevent soil erosion on sloping fields. |
| self-sufficient | able to produce enough food for one's own needs | self-sufficient in food | The government wants the country to become self-sufficient in staple grains. |
| barren | (of land) too poor to support crops | barren land, barren soil | Decades of overuse had left the fields barren and unproductive. |
| pollination | the transfer of pollen that allows plants to reproduce | pollination by bees, cross-pollination | The decline of bees threatens the pollination of many food crops. |
| agronomy | the science of soil management and crop production | modern agronomy | Advances in agronomy have helped farmers make better use of poor soils. |
| tillage | the preparation of land for crops by ploughing | reduced tillage, no-till farming | Reduced tillage helps the soil retain both moisture and carbon. |
| smallholder | a farmer who works a small plot of land | smallholder farmers | Smallholder farmers produce much of the world's food on tiny plots. |
| famine | an extreme, widespread scarcity of food | widespread famine, avert a famine | Repeated crop failure on this scale can lead to widespread famine. |
How to turn these words into marks
Commit each word inside its collocation, not on its own: memorising "irrigation" alone is close to useless, but "drip irrigation" or "an irrigation system" gives you a ready-made phrase you can drop into a sentence without a grammar risk.
Use one or two of these words per paragraph, where they are natural — accuracy beats quantity, and a single wrong collocation is more visible to an examiner than three plain sentences.
Meet the words in context with our agriculture reading practice, then make them active with a word a day on Word Coach.