Argument topic:
An international development organization, in response to a vitamin A deficiency among people in the impoverished nation of Tagus, has engineered a new breed of millet high in vitamin A. While seeds for this new type of millet cost more, farmers will be paid subsidies for farming the new variety of millet. Since millet is already a staple food in Tagus, people will readily adopt the new variety. To combat vitamin A deficiency, the government of Tagus should do everything it can to promote this new type of millet.

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.


The claim that the government of Targus should promote new type of millet is a compelling one. The reason is that a new breed of millet high in vitamin A will help to combat a vitamin A deficiency among people in the impoverished nation of Tagus. It is assumed that the proposal will be easily adopted by farmers and people in Tagus due to the following reasons:
A) Farmers will be compensated for growing the new variety of millet;
B) Since millet is already a staple food in Tagus, people will readily adopt this new variety.
Stated in this way, the argument relies on the assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument remains unconvincing and has several flaws.

First of all, the argument claims that farmers will be willing to farm the new variety of millet since they will be paid subsidies for this. It is a weak and unsupported assumption since subsidies received may not be sufficient to cover the costs to grow new type of millet. Therefore, farmers may find that growing the new variety of millet may not be economically advantageous for them. Since profitability of the product may be a determinant factor for farmers to grow the type of millet, they may choose to grow the millet that may not have sufficient vitamin A content, but may be more cost effective.

Secondly, the argument assumes that people will readily adopt the new variety since millet is already a staple food in Tagus. It is a weak and unsupported assumption since millet being a staple food in Tagus does not guarantee that people will readiliy adopt the new variety of millet. For example, not all people may tolerate the taste of the new variety of millet. Therefore, they may not readily adopt it. The international development organization may strengthen its argument by providing evidence that the new variety of millet has similiar taste as the other types of millet. For this, we can see, that being forced to dissect an argument by adopting opposing view compared to the one presented in the argument indeed brings out the strength to the argument.

To conclude, the argument is unconvincing due to the above stated reasons. The argument can be strengthened if additional evidence is provided whether subsidies provided to farmers will allow them to make profit on the new variety of millet, and whether the taste and other characteristics of the new millet are similiar to the properties of other types of millet. In order to assess a merit of a particular situation, it is essential to have knowledge of all contributing factors. Without this information, the argument remains unconvincing and open to debate.