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, which of the following helps/help in reducing hunger and starvation in the developing economies ? 1. Balancing demand and supply of food 2. Increasing imports of food 3. Increasing purchasing power of the poor 4. Changing the food consumption patterns and practices Select the correct answer using the code given below :

(a) 1 only
(b) 2, 3 and 4 only
(c) 1 and 3 only ✓ UPSC's answer
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4

Why the answer is (c)

• The passage states that for the world as a whole, a supply-demand balance is an inescapable prerequisite for warding off hunger and starvation, validating statement 1.

• It explicitly notes that global availability of food does not ensure it moves to deficit countries if they lack purchasing power, identifying 'empty-pocket hungry mouths' as the cause of uneven hunger distribution.

• Therefore, increasing the purchasing power of the poor is necessary to allow them to access available food supplies, validating statement 3.

• The passage does not suggest that increasing imports (statement 2) is a solution, as it highlights that open economies with exchange surpluses can buy food, but the core issue for developing economies is the lack of purchasing power, not just import volume.

• The passage mentions that the 'composition of demand' has undergone big changes, but it does not state that changing consumption patterns helps reduce hunger; rather, it frames this as a factor making the issue more significant.

• Consequently, only statements 1 and 3 are supported by the text as factors helping to reduce hunger and starvation.

Why the other options are wrong

(a) 1 only: Option (a) is incorrect because it excludes statement 3, which the passage identifies as critical since lack of purchasing power prevents food from reaching hungry populations despite global supply.
(b) 2, 3 and 4 only: Option (b) is incorrect because it includes statements 2 and 4, which are not cited in the passage as solutions to reducing hunger, and it excludes statement 1, which is described as an inescapable prerequisite.
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4: Option (d) is incorrect because it includes statements 2 and 4, which the passage does not support as direct measures to reduce hunger and starvation in developing economies.

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.