Sentence Correction

Hey magical cook,

Isisalaska is correct: we need a noun ("the raising"), not a verb ("raise"). To expand on this a bit, "revert" takes a noun, not a verb. For example: "I reverted to riding my bike when my car broke down" works, but "I reverted to ride my bike when my car broke down" doesn't, and "I revert to mental math when I don't have a calculator" works, but "I revert to do mental math when I don't have a calculator" does not.

We can also look at the structure of the sentence for clues. Let's look at the correct answer, A:

National trends are "toward increased consumption of specialty foods". "Increased consumption" is a noun.

Then we compare to what agronomists foresee: a reversion "to the raising of agricultural staples". "The raising" is a noun, so our sentence is parallel.

In D, we are comparing "increased consumption" to "raise": a noun to a verb. This is no longer parallel, making D wrong.

This is pretty tricky, since gerunds (-ing nouns) are usually a sign that a sentence isn't concise and often mean that an answer is incorrect. However, grammar rules always trump concision, which is why A is correct, not D.