Passage

Passage-5 Historically, the biggest challenge to world agriculture has been to achieve a balance between demand for and supply of food. At the level of individual countries, the demand-supply balance can be a critical policy issue for a closed economy, especially if it is a populous economy and its domestic agriculture is not growing sufficiently enough to ensure food supplies, on an enduring basis; it is not so much and not always, of a constraint for an open, and growing economy, which has adequate exchange surpluses to buy food abroad. For the world as a whole, supply-demand balance is always an inescapable prerequisite for warding off hunger and starvation. However, global availability of adequate supply does not necessarily mean that food would automatically move from countries of surplus to countries of deficit if the latter lack in purchasing power. The uneven distribution of hunger, starvation, under- or malnourishment, etc., at the world-level, thus owes itself to the presence of empty-pocket hungry mouths, overwhelmingly confined to the underdeveloped economies. Inasmuch as 'a two-square meal' is of elemental significance to basic human existence, the issue of worldwide supply of food has been gaining significance, in recent times, both because the quantum and the composition of demand has been undergoing big changes, and because, in recent years, the capabilities of individual countries to generate uninterrupted chain of food supplies have come under strain. Food production, marketing and prices, especially price-affordability by the poor in the developing world, have become global issues that need global thinking and global solutions.

According to the above passage, the biggest challenge to world agriculture is :

(a) to find sufficient land for agriculture and to expand food processing industries
(b) to eradicate hunger in underdeveloped countries
(c) to achieve a balance between the production of food and non-food items
(d) to achieve a balance between demand for and supply of food ✓ UPSC's answer

Why the answer is (d)

• The passage explicitly states in the very first sentence that 'Historically, the biggest challenge to world agriculture has been to achieve a balance between demand for and supply of food.'

• The text elaborates that while individual countries might manage this through trade, for the world as a whole, this supply-demand balance is an 'inescapable prerequisite' to prevent hunger.

• It further explains that global availability of food does not automatically solve the issue if deficit countries lack purchasing power, reinforcing that the core challenge is the structural balance between demand and supply.

• Therefore, the option that directly mirrors the opening statement of the passage is the correct answer.

Why the other options are wrong

(a) to find sufficient land for agriculture and to expand food processing industries: The passage does not mention finding sufficient land or expanding food processing industries as the biggest challenge.
(b) to eradicate hunger in underdeveloped countries: While the passage links the supply-demand imbalance to hunger, it identifies the balance itself as the primary agricultural challenge, not the eradication of hunger as the direct definition of the challenge.
(c) to achieve a balance between the production of food and non-food items: The passage focuses exclusively on the balance between food demand and supply, with no reference to non-food items.

Asked in the CSAT Paper II of the UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2016, held on 7 August 2016. Question and answer key: Union Public Service Commission. Explanation: UPSC Answer Check.