Passage

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 worldlevel, 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.
QUESTION

CSAT

Medium

Comprehension

Prelims 2016

According to the above passage, which of the following are the fundamental solutions for the world food security problem?

  1. Setting up more agro-based industries.
  2. Improving the price affordability by the poor.
  3. Regulating the conditions of marketing.
  4. Providing food subsidy to one and all.

Select the correct answer using the code given below:

Select an option to attempt

Explanation

Statement 1 is incorrect. The passage does not mention agro-based industries as a solution to the world food security problem. It focuses on food availability, affordability, and distribution rather than industrialization.

Statement 2 is correct. The passage highlights that food security issues arise due to the inability of the poor to afford food, making price affordability a fundamental solution.

Statement 3 is correct. The passage discusses food production, marketing, and prices as global issues, implying that regulating market conditions is essential for addressing food security.

Statement 4 is incorrect. The passage does not advocate universal food subsidies. It focuses on affordability for the poor rather than blanket subsidies for all.

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