Q12 - Proponents of organic farming

[rsmorale]

E seems like a huge jump from the premises. I don't understand how E is a necessary assumption.

Here's how I understood the stimulus:

Premises: To produce the same amount of food [as chemical farming does], more land must be under cultivation when employing organic methods.

Conclusion: Organic farming leaves less land available as habitat for local wildlife.

A- no threat to wildlife - we have no support for this extreme statement.
B- We have no way of knowing whether or not local wildlife ingest food or water containing "those" chemicals.
C- Chemical farming could feasibly have other disadvantages - the "only" here is greatly exaggerated.
D- I liked this one. I thought if we negated D, it would be impossible to compare organic v. chemical methods of farming.
E-"no longer constitutes?" the "no longer" throws me off. When were we ever doing a then/now comparison?

I'd appreciate any insight into why E is correct.

Thanks!

[demetri.blaisdell]

This is a necessary assumption question so the assumption might be difficult to anticipate. We still want to diagram the core and look for a gap. Your core is right on:

Organic farm requires more land than farming with chemicals --> Organic farming leaves less land as a habitat for local wildlife

The gap isn't obvious here, but we do get a term shift from using more land to having less land as a habitat. Do we know that the organic farms will replace habitat? What if the land doesn't have wildlife now? (E) addresses that gap in a slightly different way. What if organic farms don't replace wildlife habitat but actually serve as a habitat for wildlife (because they are so natural and green and environmentally-friendly). Apply the negation test: organic farmland is still a habitat for wildlife. The argument completely falls apart. Even if organic farms use 1000 times more land than other farms, they are only expanding habitat for wildlife.

(A) is not necessary for the argument. The author isn't saying the chemicals are not bad for wildlife. She is saying that the two farms both replace habitat and organic farms replace more.

(B) is closer to the argument, but suffers from detail creep. The argument does assume that the area of conventional farms is a reliable indicator of how much habitat they will destroy (so she can compare it to the area of organic farms). But (B) says the assumption is that they won't ingest ANY chemicals. That's much stronger than a necessary assumption for this argument.

(C) The author does not make a conclusion on whether chemicals should be used: she merely says that organic farms will leave less land available for habitats. While perhaps unlikely, the author could actually support organic farming (for other, unstated reasons).

(D) questions a premise. We are told in the stimulus that the same amount of food requires more land. (D) tries to muddle that picture. Don't fall for the premise weakener. We are concerned with the connection between the premise and conclusion, not with whether the premise is "really" true. If you still don't believe me, negate it: They grow different crops on the different farms. This can't change the fact (given in the premise) that the same amount of food (measured in calories, for example) requires more space on organic farms. So the argument remains unchanged.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

Demetri

[sumukh09]

I was hesitant in selecting E) because I didn't think it had to be true that organic farming no longer constituted a habitat for wildlife. The stimulus says that it would require more land and that land would be less available, but I didn't think that had to necessarily imply that it would completely replace the habitat. Just because somethings "less available" doesn't mean it's no longer a feasible option for something else ie) wildlife. Moreover, the land could still serve as a habitat but there would just be less land to deal with. Hopefully this makes sense

Edit: sorry I didn't make this clear in my post, but I'm actually asking for a more elaborate explanation for why answer choice E) is correct - thanks!

[WaltGrace1983]

I was hesitant in selecting E) because I didn't think it had to be true that organic farming no longer constituted a habitat for wildlife. The stimulus says that it would require more land and that land would be less available, but I didn't think that had to necessarily imply that it would completely replace the habitat. Just because somethings "less available" doesn't mean it's no longer a feasible option for something else ie) wildlife. Moreover, the land could still serve as a habitat but there would just be less land to deal with. Hopefully this makes sense

Edit: sorry I didn't make this clear in my post, but I'm actually asking for a more elaborate explanation for why answer choice E) is correct - thanks!

I'll see if I can chime in with something good here. I didn't like (E) at all initially when I was doing this questioned timed. I didn't like it because the phrasing wasn't what I expected but it was clearly the best answer so I chose it and moved along. Let's revisit the core:

More land must be used for organic farming techniques than chemical farming techniques
→
Organic farming leaves less land available for local wildlife [than chemical farming does]

I think the confusing part is that the comparison between organic farming and chemical farming is more implied than stated directly. However, I don't think it is altogether necessary to be comparing the two because, either way, we know that organic farming takes up more space than chemical farming. Thus, when organic farming is used, it invariably takes more land, got it!

Now how do we get from taking up land to leaving less land available for wildlife? This is the crux of the argument! The argument is more or less assuming that land used for organic farming and land used for habitat is mutually exclusive. In other words, IF there is organic farming on the land THEN the land must not be habitable. Yet what if organic farming, while taking up more land, indeed doesn't deplete the land available for a habitat? What if the land used for organic farming and land used for habitat is not mutually exclusive? Couldn't it be the case that the land used for organic farming can also actually be used as a habitat? Yes!

This is what (E) gets at! (E) shows how the argument is assuming that there is at least some land used for organic farming that can no longer be used for habitat. If we negate this, see how the argument doesn't look so good anymore:

More land must be used for organic farming techniques than chemical farming techniques
+
Land used for organic farming techniques constitute a habitat for wildlife
→
Organic farming leaves less land available for local wildlife [than chemical farming does]

This really makes the conclusion look bad! In fact, the negated assumption seems to perhaps imply that it is actually the chemical farming techniques that leaves less land available! I hope that all helps!

[uhdang]

Hi, I've got my incorrect answer reasonings a bit different, so want to post them out. Be ruthless on my view and tear it apart if you have any different views.

A) We are concerned with organic farming's influence on wildlife's habitat. But this is about the impact of chemical fertilizers and pesticides on wildlife's health. Habitat is a different scope from health, so this is out of scope. Aside from that, this rather weakens proponents' claim on those substances' harmful effect on wildlife. But this is irrelevant to the core.

B) Again, talking about chemical's impact on wildlife has nothing to do with organic farming's impact on wildlife's habitat. Also, this weakens proponents' claim, again, because chemicals would have little harmful effect if wildlife aren't ingesting any. But ultimately, this is out of scope.

C) This would be an argument for "why we should use chemicals in farming, or why not." Nothing to do with the argument's core. out of scope.

D) If they were conducting an experiment to see which farming technique result in more successful outcomes, this would strengthen reliability of the experiment. But, this is not what we are focusing on. Organic farming's impact on habitat is the issue. Irrelevant.

(D) questions a premise. We are told in the stimulus that the same amount of food requires more land. (D) tries to muddle that picture. Don't fall for the premise weakener. We are concerned with the connection between the premise and conclusion, not with whether the premise is "really" true. If you still don't believe me, negate it: They grow different crops on the different farms. This can't change the fact (given in the premise) that the same amount of food (measured in calories, for example) requires more space on organic farms. So the argument remains unchanged.

I did't quite understand how this is a premise weakener. If anything, wouldn't it be a premise booster? Because this would increase reliability of a given fact that organic farming DOES require more land (having compared two techniques with equal crops).

E) This exploits the assumption of this argument. For double checking, use the negation technique. If wildlife CAN live in the land cultivated by organic farming methods, they won’t lose habitat, thereby destroys the argument.