Residents of a particular region in the country Ingora became very fond of the staple food gongoren and it became a preferred food throughout the country. The consumption of gongoren steadily increased till 1995 but witnessed a somewhat drastic decline thereafter. It was felt that this was because the gongoren leaves in the region had lost their flavor.
Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the claim above about the dramatic loss of flavor of the gongoren leaves?
(A) Agricultural scientists identified and developed alternatives to the gongoren plant which supplied the flavored leaves and these were freely made available to the farmers of the region in which the consumption of gongoren leaves declined drastically after 1995.
(B) A particular pesticide that farmers started using from 1995 to increase the yield of gongoren leaves adversely affected the growth of bacteria that was responsible for providing the requisite flavor without which the residents of the particular region would have no reason to consume gongoren leaves.
(C) Gongoren leaves naturally lose their flavor if they are not harvested at the right time and this happened in several areas and during several seasons in the years before 1995 resulting in significant crop losses and a sharp rise in the wholesale and retail prices of the gongoren leaves .
(D) The flavor of the gongoren leaves cannot be attributed to climatic and weather conditions thought to be favorable to the cultivation of the gongoren plants and to be the causative factors for the presence of the characteristic flavor of the gongoren leaves.
(E) Gongoren leaves have recently been discovered in laboratory researches to have properties not unlike those of other staple foods used by the people of the particular region and this may have been the reason people became fond of the gongoren as a staple food.
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