Kim: The rapidly growing world population is increasing demands of food producers in ways that threaten our natural ...

Naz March 6, 2014

Kim points out to us that the rapidly growing population is increasing demand on food producers in ways that threaten our natural resources because this will lead to more land being needed for food production and urban areas, leaving less land for forests and wildlife habitats.

Hampton responds to Kim by pointing out that she is ignoring the promise of technological improvements that will allow the world population of ten billion predicted for 2050 to be fed without devoting more land to agriculture.

If technological improvements do allow this, then Kim's issue with the increase in demands of food producers due to to rapidly growing world population will be resolved.

Thus, answer choice (B), i.e. "Continued research into more-efficient agricultural practices and innovative biotechnology aimed at producing more food on less land would be beneficial," is the answer choice that Kim and Hampton would both agree on.

Hope that helped! Please let us know if you have any more questions.

Batman March 14, 2014

Thanks a lot!!!^^

doglvr August 20, 2015

Doesn't answer b require us to make an inference though that kim is in favor of research? I am having trouble understanding why d can't be the right answer. Kim directly talks about forests and wildlife habitats and Hampton says the improvements will allow us to feed the worlds population "without significantly increasing the percentage of the world's land now devoted to agriculture" ( so forests and wildlife habitats?) couldn't hamptons position support kim by saying unless there are improvements human population will continue to erode wildlife habitats and diminish forests (choice d)

rweyer September 16, 2017

No because Hampton stated that because of technology we would be more efficient with agriculture. Never did they say it would diminish.

Ashley-Tien July 11, 2018

How do we eliminate D? I thought Hampton implicitly agreed with the fact that population is growing, so he provided technological advancement as a solution

wills March 17, 2019

Can we get the question answered about the inference outside of the provided information that is required for answer choice B?

Samantha-Alexis June 13, 2019

I have the same question: how do we know to eliminate answer choice D?

Victoria June 14, 2019

Hello all,

Kim states that human population growth is increasing the demand for food in ways that threaten our natural resources as the mass development of land required for food production and urban areas will result in less land that is available for forests and wildlife habitats.

Hampton argues that Kim's view fails to account for the promise of technology. Hampton states that improvements in agricultural technology and practices will allow us to feed a growing population without significantly increasing the amount of land that is devoted to agriculture.

We can eliminate answer choice D because Hampton does not discuss the negative impacts of human population growth. They simply argue that, with improvements in technology, we will require less land than projected to keep up with increasing demand for food. We cannot assume from this that Hampton also believes that human population growth will continue to erode wildlife habitats and diminish forests. If Hampton has such a techno-centric worldview, then it is entirely possible that they actually believe that human population growth will have a minimal impact on wildlife habitats and forests as there will likely be technological innovations which will mitigate these impacts. Overall, we can eliminate D because there is nothing in Hampton's argument which suggests that they believe human population growth will negatively impact wildlife habitats and forests.

B is the correct answer from Hampton's point of view because they are reliant on improvements in agricultural technology and practices, i.e. research, to successfully make their argument. B is the correct answer from Kim's point of view because they are concerned about the amount of land required to support the increases in food production and urban development. If research into more efficient agricultural practices and innovative biotechnology aimed at producing more food on less land was successful, then there would be less of an impact on wildlife habitats and forests.

As for @doglvr's point, B does require us to infer that Kim is in favour of research. However, we can safely assume that Kim would support research examining how to minimize the amount of land required for increased food production and urban development as it would also minimize the impact on wildlife habitats and forests, thereby addressing Kim's concerns regarding human population growth.

It is a greater leap to assume that Hampton is actually saying that, unless we improve agricultural technology and practices, there will be negative impacts on wildlife habitats and forests than it is to assume that Kim would support research that would mitigate these negative impacts about which they are concerned.

@Ashley-Tien, Hampton does agree that the population is growing, but this does not mean that they also necessarily agree that this population growth will have negative impacts on wildlife habitats and forests.

I hope this is helpful! Please let us know if you have any further questions.

Angel92 May 22, 2022

I got this answer right when I did it a long time ago but ended up doing it again for #8 and I got it wrong lol. I got this wrong because I did not see anywhere that she would agree with biotechnology’s, What if she didn’t agree with technology and instead believed in humanity adapting to a modified diet? Or perhaps find ways to stop over population? There so many solutions to this issue it is complex and yet I can’t be sure for a fact that she would agree with biotechnology being the only way to stop increases in land. this doesn’t seem like this would be the correct answer but I suppose it is better then all the other answers. Nonetheless all the answers are terrible.

Emil-Kunkin May 24, 2022

Hi Angel92,

I agree that we do not necessarily have any reason to support the idea that Kim would specifically support biotech- although she clearly supports the goal of biotech, which is making more food/land available to support more people. While it could be possible that she has some sort of moral or religious objection to biotechnology, we could probably assume that since her goal is to enable more efficient food production, she would support a technological solution that would meet that goal.

That said, (B) is certainly the least bad answer rather than one without any holes.