Chapter 4 Food Security

Very Short Answer Questions

1. What does ‘Food Security’ mean?
Answer: Food security means availability, accessibility and affordability of food to all people
at all times.
2. Which was the most devastating famine to have occurred in India?
Answer: The most devastating famine that had occurred in India was the famine of Bengal in
1943. This famine killed thirty lakh people in the province of Bengal.
3. What kind of people in rural areas are food insecure?
Answer: The worst affected groups are landless people with little or no land to depend upon,
traditional artisans, providers of traditional services, petty self employed workers and destitute
including beggars.
4. How did India become self sufficient?
Answer: India has become self sufficient in food grains during the last thirty years because of
a variety of crops grown all over the country.
5. What is buffer stock?
Answer: Buffer stock is the stock of food grains, namely wheat and rice procured by the
government through Food Corporation of India (FCI).
6. What are Fair Price Shops?
Answer: Ration Shops, also known as Fair Price Shops, keep stocks of food grains, sugar,
kerosene oil, etc. These items are sold to people at a price lower than the market price.
7. Which important food intervention programmes were introduced by Indian
government after NSSO report?
Answer:(i) Public Distribution System – for food grains. (ii) Integrated Child Development
Service – in 1975 on experimental basis. (iii) Food for Work-Introduced in 1977-78.
8. What are the benefits of PDS?
Answer: The PDS has proved to be the most effective instrument of government policy over
the years in stabilising prices and making food available to the poor at affordable prices.
9. How has Minimum Support Prices supported the farmers?
Answer: The minimum support prices and procurement has contributed to an increase in food
grain production and provided income security to farmers in certain regions.

Short Answer Type Questions

1. What kind of people faces food insecurity?
Answer: The poorest section of the society might be food insecure most of the times while
persons above the poverty line might also be food insecure when the country faces a national
disaster/calamity like drought, flood, tsunami, widespread failure of crops causing famine, etc.
2. What policies were adopted by Indian government to remove food insecurity?
Answer: After Independence, Indian policy makers adopted all measures to achieve self
sufficiency in food grains, for that a new strategy of ‘Green Revolution’ was introduced to
increase production of wheat and rice in our country.
3. What is Minimum Support Price?
Answer: The FCI purchases wheat and rice from the farmers in states where there is surplus
production. The farmers are paid a pre-announced price for their crops. This price is called
Minimum Support Price.
4. What is Public Distribution System?
Answer: The food procured by the FCI is distributed through government regulated ration
shops among the poorer section of the society. This is called the public distribution system
(PDS).
5. What do you know about National Food for Work Programme?
Answer: This programme was launched on November 14, 2004 in 150 most backward
districts of the country with the objective of intensifying the generation of supplementary
wage employment.
6. What is RPDS?
Answer: Over the years, the policy related to PDS has been revised to make it more efficient
and targeted. In 1992 Revamped Public Distribution System was introduced in 1,700 blocks in
the country. The target was to provide the benefits of PDS to remote and backward areas
7. What is TPDS?
Answer: From June 1997, in a renewed attempt. Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS)
was introduced to adopt the principle of targeting the ‘poor in all areas’. It was for the first
time that a differential price policy was adopted for poor and non-poor.
8. What is a ‘Subsidy’?
Answer: ‘Subsidy’ is a payment that a government makes to a producer to supplement the
market price of a commodity. Subsidies can keep consumer prices low while maintaining a
higher income for domestic producers.
Long Answer Type Questions
1. What are the dimensions of ‘food security’?
Answer: The dimensions of food security are:
(i) Availability of food: It is the food production within the country including food imports and
previous year stock of food in government granaries.
(ii) Accessibility: This means food within the reach of every person.
(iii) Affordability: This means whether the individual has enough money to buy sufficient and
nutritious food.
2. Why do we need ‘food security’?
Answer: Food security is needed because:
(i) The poorest section of the society might be food insecure most of the times.
(ii) People above the poverty line might also be food insecure when the country faces a
national disaster or calamity like an earthquake, drought, flood, tsunami, etc.
(iii) There can also be a widespread failure of crops causing famines, etc.
3. What does Antyodaya Anna Yojana mean?
Answer: (i) The AAY was launched in December 2000.
(ii) Under this scheme, one crore of the poorest among the BPL (Below Poverty Line) families
covered under the targeted PDS system were identified.
(iii) Twenty-five kilograms of food grains were made available to each eligible family at a
highly subsidised rate.
4. What buffer norms are to be followed by the government?
Answer: (i) There is a general consensus that high level of buffer stocks of food grains is very
undesirable and can be wasteful.
(ii) The storage of massive food stocks has been responsible for high carrying cost, in addition
to wastage and deterioration in grain quality.
(iii) Freezing of Minimum Support Price (MSP) for a few years should be considered seriously.
The rising MSP has raised the maintenance cost of procuring food grains by the government.
5. What is ‘hunger’? Differentiate between Chronic and Seasonal hunger.
Answer: Hunger is another aspect of food insecurity. Hunger is not just an expression of
poverty, it brings about poverty. Its a situation when you feel hungry but are unable or cannot
afford food. Difference between Chronic and Seasonal hunger:
(i) Chronic hunger
(a)It is a consequence of diets persistently inadequate in terms of quantity and/or quality.
(b) Poor people suffer from chronic hunger because of their very low incomes and inability to
buy food even for survival.
(ii) Seasonal hunger
(a) It is related to the cycles of food growing and harvesting.
(b) This is prevalent in the rural areas because of the seasonal nature of agricultural activities.
(c) In urban areas, casual labour is unable to get work for the entire year which makes him
hungry.
6. What is ‘buffer stock’? Why was it created by the government?
Answer: Buffer stock is the stock of food grains, namely wheat and rice procured by the
government through Food Corporation of India (FCI).
(i) The FCI purchases wheat and rice from the farmers in states where there is surplus
production.
(ii) The farmers are paid a pre-announced price for their crops. This price is called Minimum
Support Price (MSP).
(iii) The MSP is declared by the government every year, before the sowing season to provide
incentives to the farmers for raising the production of these crops.
(iv) The purchased food grains are stored in granaries by the government.
(v) This is done to distribute food grains in the deficit areas and among the poorer strata of
society, at a price lower than the market price also known as Issue Price.
(vi) This also helps resolve the problem of shortage of food during adverse weather conditions
or during the periods of calamity.
7. What are some of the important features of the PDS?
Answer: (i) It is the most effective government policy in stabilising prices and making food
available to consumers at affordable prices.
(ii) It helps in averting widespread hunger and famine by supplying food from surplus regions
of the country to the deficit areas.
(iii) The prices have been under revision in favour of poor households in general.
(iv) Minimum Support Price announcement has increased the food production and provided
income security to farmers.
8. What is the role of ‘Cooperatives’ in food security? Or Write a note on the role of
cooperatives in providing food and retained items.
Answer: (i) The Cooperative societies set up shops to sell low priced goods to poor people.
(ii) In Delhi, ‘Mother-Dairy’ is making efforts to sell milk, milk products and vegetables at
controlled rates.
(iii) Amul is another cooperative in milk and milk products in Gujarat. It has brought about the
‘White Revolution’ in the country.
(iv) In Maharashtra, Academy of Development Science (ADS) has a network of NGOs for setting
up grain banks in different regions. They organize training and capacity building programmes
on food security for NGOs. Grain banks are now slowly taking shape in different parts of
Maharashtra.
(v) There are many more cooperatives running in different parts of the country, ensuring food
security for different sections of the society.