The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a Batavia newspaper."The department of agriculture in Batavia reports that the number of dairy farms throughout the country is now 25 percent greater than it was 10 years ago. During this same time perio

The author of the letter above believes that the Batavia government should regulate retail milk price as he/she thinks that the current prices are unfair. This conclusion is based on the premise that 25 percent increase of the milk supply should have resulted in the decrease of the prices not its 200 percent increase. The author needs to answer several vital questions in order to illustrate the argument.

First, the author cites reports from the department of agriculture in Batavia that throughout the country the dairy farms are now 25 percent greater in numbers than 10 years ago. The author needs to ask whether, as the farms are increased, the supply of the milk increased simultaneously for the people of Batavia. It is possible that some of these farms are not active, and there is no production in them. It is also possible that the milk is exported to other places, therefore the volume of milk supply exclusively for the Batavian people is needed to be asked by the author. Moreover, Even if the supply is increased, the author needs to ask how much the supply increased proportional to the demands. Here the demands might surge much more than the supply. During a decade, it is highly possible that population increased in the Batavia and with it demands raised increasingly. If this is the case, the rise in the price of milk is clearly justified.

Secondly, the author refers to the price of milk based on selling price of the local Excello Food Market. It is possible that it is only in this local food market that the price is high and other places the price is much lower. Therefore the author should ask what the price of the milk is in general, not to rely merely on a local market. Furthermore, the middlemen between farmers and the retailers might have raised the prices to get excessive profits. To ascribe the high price to the farmers, the author needs to ask what the price is when the farmers sell their milks.

Thirdly, even the farmers are those who have raised the price of the dairy products, their price may not be unfair which in turn demands the intervention of the government to regulate the price. The rise of the milk price is happened during the ten years. It is possible that the inflation has raised the cost for farmers to produce milk and they are not receiving excessive profit as they have to spend more to produce milk. If this is the reason which the price has gone up, the farmers are proven innocent. Therefore the author needs to ask what costs are behind the price of milk, whether to recognize the price as unfair.

In short, as discussed, the argument is replete with unclear conditions. The answer to the enumerated questions would make the argument clear. However, without such answers the current form of the argument is too ambiguous to be tenable