Improving Farm Economics

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Passage

The prevailing trend in agriculture toward massive and highly mechanized production, with its heavy dependence on debt and credit as a means of raising capital, has been linked to the growing problem of bankruptcy among small farms. African American horticulturalist Booker T. Whatley has proposed a comprehensive approach to small farming that believes will bring about such profitability when combined with smart management and hard work.

Whatley emphasizes that small farms must generate year-round cash flow. To this end, he recommends growing at least ten different crops, which would alleviate financial problems should one crop fail completely. To minimize the need to seek hard-to-obtain loans, the market for the farm products should be developed via a “clientele membership crops that clients ask for, and to comply with client requests regarding the use of chemicals.

Whatley stresses that this “pick-your-own” farming is crucial for profitability because 50 percent of a farmer’s production cost is tied up with harvesting, and using clients as harvesters allows the farmer to charge 60 percent of what supermarkets charge and still operate the farm at a profit. Whatley’s plan also affords farmers needed. The CMC would consist primarily of people from metropolitan areas who value fresh produce.

The success of this plan, Whatley cautions, depends in large part on a farm’s location: the farm should be situated on a hard-surfaced road within 40 miles of a population center of at least 50,000 people, as studies suggest that people are less inclined to travel any greater distances for food. In alternative to sprawling corporate farms while providing top-quality agricultural goods to consumers in most urban areas.

What this question is testing

Inference

Your task

Find what must be true based on what the passage or stimulus states.

Common trap

Answers that are plausible or likely but not actually guaranteed by the text.

Winning move

Keep only the choice the statements fully support — eliminate anything that requires an extra assumption.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question

The passage provides the most support for inferring which one of the

Answer choices

Unknown Comparison2% picked this
A corporate farm is more likely to need a loan than a
The only thing we hear about loans is in the 2nd paragraph, where it says that small farms would find loans "hard-to-obtain".
2%
Unsupported / Opposite5% picked this
If small farms charged what supermarkets charge for produce that is fresher than that sold by supermarkets, then small farms would see
If small farms raised their prices to match what supermarkets charge, then the small farms would probably lose a lot of business. Supermarkets offer convenience. They're in your neighborhood. The food is already off the vine. Small farms offer better produce and better prices, but at the considerable downside of needing to drive 40 miles to get there and to harvest your own produce once you arrive. If the prices weren't cheaper, city folk would be more inclined to buy produce from their local supermarket, so matching the prices of supermarkets could be bad for small farms in the long term.
5%
Unknown Comparison17% picked this
Consumers who live in rural areas are generally less inclined than those who live in metropolitan areas
We have no way to compare the likelihood of a rural consumer joining a CMC to that of a city consumer joining a CMC. Whatley's plan recommends being close to a population center of at least 50,000 people, not because city folk are more likely to join a CMC than are country folk, but just because the CMC needs about 1,000 people to be viable and so the dense populations of cities allow a farm to set up near more potential customers. But you can imagine, if you lived in a rural area that was also within a 40 min drive of the small farm, you'd have just as much incentive as a city dweller would to drive to the farm and harvest your own produce so that you can get higher quality produce at a lower-than-supermarket price.
17%
Correct58% picked this
If a CMC requests fewer than ten different crops to be grown, then at least one of Whatley's
Why this is right
This is one of those Inference correct answers that pulls support from multiple places. Whatley made both of these recommendations: 1. grow at least ten different crops 2. grow only the crops that CMC clients ask for So LSAC, in its infinite cuteness, came up with this answer. If a CMC asked for only 8 crops, then you'd be force to either break rule 1 or rule 2. If you follow rule 1 and grow at least 10 crops, then you're not growing only the crops the CMC asked for. If you follow rule 2 and grow the 8 crops the CMC requested, then you're not following rule 1.
Skill tested: Inference · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
58%
Contradicted18% picked this
Distribution costs are accounted for in the budget of a small farm with a CMC and are
The idea with the CMC is that you don't distribute the crops from the farm. Members of the CMC just come to the farm and harvest their own crops. That's how it "eliminates" distribution costs.
18%

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