Those who believe that innovations in biotechnology may be able to hel

Answer : This question mostly falls under Subject verb agreement:

''which'' refers to Africa so should be in verb agreement by using 'is'. Second agreement has to be with 'those' mentioned in the first clause i.e the Subject of the main clause and should be followed by ''are''

This agreement is present in Option : D

Those who believe that innovations in biotechnology may be able to help alleviate the challenges of agriculture in Africa, which the world community generally agrees are in crisis, are asking plant geneticists and other scientists why they think the situation of small farmers in Africa has grown so dire.

A. which the world community generally agrees are in crisis, are asking plant geneticists and other scientists why they think are in crisis - Subject Verb Agreement Error

B. which, the world community generally agree, is in crisis, is asking plant geneticists and other scientists their thoughts as to why is asking - Subject Verb Agreement Error

C. which the world community generally agrees is in crisis, are asking for plant geneticists' and other scientists' thoughts about why they think they - ambiguous pronoun error - they can refer to those or geneticists and scientists

D. which the world community generally agrees is in crisis, are asking plant geneticists and other scientists for their thoughts on why Correct

E. which, the world community agrees, are in a crisis, ask plant geneticists and other scientists why are in crisis - Subject Verb Agreement Error

Hii skamal.
E can be stated as this way:
Those who believe that innovations in biotechnology may be able to help alleviate the challenges of agriculture in Africa, which, the world community agrees, [color=#ff0000]are in a crisis, ask plant geneticists and other scientists why[/color] the situation of small farmers in Africa has grown so dire.
E has
i) SVA issue. What is in crisis? Its AFRICA. Being singular, it is supposed to be referred by a singular verb "is" and not "are".
ii) It uses two independent clauses and without a conjunction word, its incorrect. It says "Africa is in crisis" and without any conjunction introduces another independent clause "ask plant geneticists and other scientists .....". This is incorrect.

Hope this helps.

The first step in this issue is the SV agreement. The subject of the pronoun – which - is indeed Agriculture (with its essential modifier phrase ‘in Africa’). Agriculture is singular and therefore the verb should be – is in a crisis- rather than- are in a crisis. That way one can eliminate choices A and E in one stroke.

The eliminate B, for another SV disagreement, namely, -the world community generally agree -; it should be – agrees- In addition –is asking – should be – are asking – as the subject of the verb phrase is actually – those- .

E has also has a diction problem. This is relating a specific case of asking and so, it will be proper to use the progressive tense –are asking- When you say, - ask-, that means that they perpetually ask as a matter of habit.

Between C and D, you can see why C is clumsy and D is the winner.
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Hii Daagh.
Is it the agriculture over which the world community agrees is in crisis or Africa? Both seem to sound fine.

Marcab, Hi,

This issue is related to agriculture (in Africa). Here the prepositional modifier - In Africa - is essential, because it is the agriculture in Africa that is suffering, not Agriculture in general. So Agriculture befits more than Africa. We are not talking about Africa in general either. You see the cue words for this dimension are the plant geneticists, small farmers etc, which signify that the core theme of the topic is African Agriculture.
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