Food Security in India Important Questions Class 9 Social Science Economics
Very Short Answer Type Questions
Question 1. Which was the most devastating famine to have occurred in India?
Answer
The most devastating famine that occurred in India was the famine of Bengal in 1943. This famine killed thirty lakh people in the province of Bengal.
Question 2. Which states achieved the highest rate of growth in food grain production during Green Revolution?
Answer
Punjab and Haryana achieved the highest rate of growth in the production of wheat.
Question 3. What is food security?
Answer
Food is as essential for living as air is for breathing. Food security means something more than getting two square meals.
Question 4. Why has PDS been facing severe criticism?
Answer
Instances of hunger are prevalent despite overflowing granaries. FCI god owns are overflowing with grains, with some rotting away and some being eaten by rats.
Question 5. 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.
Question 6. How is food security affected during a calamity?
Answer
Due to a natural calamity, the total production of food grains decreases. It creates a shortage of food in the affected areas.
Question 7. 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.
Question 8. What is the role of ADS?
Answer
ADS is Academy of Development Science which has facilitated a network of NGOs for setting up grain banks in different regions.
Question 9. When was rationing system introduced in India?
Answer
The rationing system was introduced in India in the 1940s after the disastrous Bengal famine occurred.
Question 10. 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.
Question 11. On what factors does food security depend on?
Answer
Food security depends on the Public Distribution System (PDS) and government vigilance and action at times when this security is threatened.
Question 12. 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 the minimum support price.
Question 13. Does hungers cause food insecurity?
Answer: Hunger is another aspect indicating food insecurity, arising from poverty.
Short Answer Type Questions
Question 1. What rights provide food security?
Answer
(i) Availability of food
(ii) Accessibility of food
(iii) Affordability of food.
Question 2. How is food security affected during a calamity?
Answer
Due to a national calamity say, drought, total production of food grain decreases. It creates a shortage of food in the affected areas. Due to a shortage of food, the prices go up. At the high prices, many people cannot afford to buy food.
Question 3. What type of people in urban areas are food insecure?
Answer
In the urban areas, food insecure families are those whose working members are generally employed in ill-paid occupations and casual labour market. These workers are largely engaged in seasonal activities and are paid very low wages that just ensure basic survival.
Question 4. 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
Question 5. What kind of malpractices are there among PDS dealers?
Answer
PDS dealers are sometimes found resorting to malpractices like diverting the grains to the open market to get better margins, selling poor quality grains at ration shops, irregular opening of the shops, etc.
Question 6. What is the contribution of Grain Banks?
Answer
ADS tried to set up Grain Banks in Maharashtra to facilitate replication through other NGOs and to influence the Government policy on food security. These are paying rich dividends. It has been acknowledged as a successful and innovative food security intervention.
Question 7. Why food security is necessary?
Answer
The poorest, section of society might be food insecure most of the time while persons above the poverty line might also be food insecure when the country faces a natural disaster like earthquake, drought, flood, tsunami, widespread failure of crops causing famine, etc.
Question 8. How does ‘chronic hunger’ occur?
Answer
Chronic hunger is a consequence of having a persistently inadequate diet in terms of quantity and quality. Poor people suffer from chronic hunger because of very low income and, in turn, inability to buy food even for survival.
Question 9. Who are food-insecure?
Answer
Although a large section of people suffers from food and nutrition insecurity in India, 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 beggars.
Question 10. How was the success of ‘Green Revolution’ felicitated by Indira Gandhi?
Answer
Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, officially recorded the impressive strides of the Green Revolution in agriculture by releasing a special stamp entitled ‘Wheat Revolution’ in July 1968.
Question 11. Why buffer stock is created by the government?
Answer
Buffer stock is created by the government 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 the issue price This also helps resolve the problems of shortage of food during adverse weather conditions or during the periods of calamity.
Question 12. 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.
Question 13. Give any four drawbacks of public distribution system?
Answer
The four drawbacks of PDS are as follows:
- Deaths due to hunger: Many instances of death due to hunger are prevalent despite overflowing granaries. FCI godowns are overflowing with grains with some rotting. away and some being eaten by rats.
- High carrying costs: The high level of buffer stocks is responsible for high carrying costs. The rising minimum support price has raised the maintenance cost of procuring food grains for the government.
Question 14. What do you understand by ‘seasonal hunger’?
Answer
Seasonal hunger is related to cycles of food production. This happens in rural areas because of the seasonal nature of agricultural activities and in urban areas because of the casual labourers who get less work during the rainy season.
Question 15. How does FCI purchase grains from the farmers?
Answer
The Minimum Support Price (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. The purchased food grains are stored in granaries.
Question 16. Explain the three dimensions of food security.
Answer
Availability of food means food production within the country, accessibility means food within reach of every person and affordability means that an individual has enough money to buy sufficient safe food.
Question 17. How do famines lead to widespread deaths?
Answer
A famine is characterised by widespread deaths due to starvation and epidemics caused by forced use of contaminated water or decaying food and loss of body resistance due to weakening from starvation.
Long Answer Type Questions
Question 1. What are the three important Food Intervention Programmes?
Answer
- Public Distribution System (PDS) gives provision of food grains for the poor at a subsidised cost. It existed earlier also but strengthened thereafter.
- Integrated Child Development Science (ICDS). It was introduced in 1975 on an experimental basis.
- Food For Work (FFW) was introduced in 1977-78. Over the years, several new programmes have been launched and some have been restructured with the growing experience of administering of the programme.
Question 2. Who are food-insecure?
Answer
Although a large section of people suffers from food and nutrition insecurity in India, 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 beggars.
In the urban areas, the food-insecure families are those whose working members are generally employed in ill-paid occupations and casual labour markets.
Question 3. How is food security affected during a calamity?
Answer
- Due to a natural calamity, total production of food grains decreases.
- It creates a shortage of food in the affected area.
- Due to a shortage of food, the prices go up.
- At higher prices, some people cannot afford to buy food.
- If such a calamity occurs in a widespread area, it may cause a situation of starvation.
- A massive situation of starvation might turn into a famine.
Question 4. How does the social inability to buy food also play a role in food insecurity?
Answer
- The SCs, STs and some sections of the OBCs that have low land productivity are prone to food insecurity.
- The people who are affected by natural disasters and have to migrate to other areas in search of work are also amongst the most food insecure people.
- Malnutrition among women can even put the unborn baby at risk of malnutrition.
- A large proportion of pregnant and nursing mothers, and children under the age of 5 years are also among the food insecure population.
Question 5. What is the ‘rationing system’?
Answer
- It was introduced in India in the 1940s after the Bengal Famine.
- The rationing system was revived in the 1960s due to food shortage in India.
- Due to the high incidence of poverty in the mid-1970s reported by NSSO, three food intervention programmes were introduced:
(a) Public Distribution System (PDS) for food grains; already existed but was strengthened later on.
(b) Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) was introduced in 1975 on an experimental basis.
(c) Food For Work (FFW) Programme launched in 2004 in 150 most backward districts of the country to intensify the generation of supplementary wage employment.
Question 6. Write a short note on National Food for Work Programme.
Answer
National Food for Work 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 and the desire to do manual unskilled work. It is implemented as a 100 per cent centrally sponsored scheme and the food grains are provided to states free of cost.
The collector is the nodal officer at the district level and has the overall responsibility of planning implementation, coordination, monitoring and supervision. For 2004-05, Rs. 2020 Crore has been allocated for the programme in addition to 20 lakh tonnes of food-grains.
Question 7. Who are the most affected food insecure people in India?
Answer
The worst affected people in rural areas are:
- Landless people with little or no land to depend on.
- The traditional artisans.
- Providers of traditional services like Pandits performing religious ceremonies.
- Petty, self-employed workers.
- Poor and the destitute including beggars.
- Those families are food insecure whose working members are generally employed in ill-paid occupations.
- Casual labour in the market.
- These workers are mostly engaged in seasonal activities and are paid very low wages that just ensure their bare survival.
Question 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
- The Cooperative societies set up shops to sell low-priced goods to poor people.
- In Delhi, ‘Mother-Dairy’ is making efforts to sell milk, milk products and vegetables at controlled rates.
- Amul is another cooperative in milk and milk products in Gujarat. It has brought about the ‘White Revolution’ in the country.
- 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.
- There are many more cooperatives running in different parts of the country, ensuring food security for different sections of society.
Question 9. How did India aim at self-sufficiency in food grains after independence?
Answer
- After independence, the Indian policymakers adopted all measures to achieve self-sufficiency.
- India has adopted a new strategy in agriculture called the ‘Green Revolution’, which is introduced in the production of rice and wheat.
- Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India officially recorded the success of the Green Revolution by releasing a special stamp entitled ‘Wheat Revolution’.
- The success of wheat was later replicated in rice.
- The highest rate of growth was achieved in Punjab and Haryana where food grains production jumped to an all-time high.
- Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh on the other hand, recorded a significant increase in rice yield.
Question 10. Hunger indicates food insecurity. Explain?
Answer
Hunger is not just an expression of poverty, it brings about poverty. The attainment of food security, therefore, involves eliminating current hunger and reducing the risks of future hunger. Hunger has chronic and seasonal dimensions. Chronic hunger is a consequence of diets persistently inadequate in terms of quantity and/or quality. Poor people suffer from chronic hunger because of their low income and in turn, instability to buy food even for survival.
Seasonal hunger is related to cycles of food growing and harvesting. This is prevalent in rural areas because of the seasonal nature of agricultural activities and in urban areas because of the casual labour e.g. there is less work for causal construction labour during the rainy season.
This type of hunger exists when a person is unable to get work for the entire year. The percentage of seasonal, as well as chronic hunger, has declined in India. Seasonal hunger has declined to 0.6 in urban areas and 2.6 in rural areas. Chronic hunger is 0.3 in urban areas and 2.7 in rural areas.
Question 11. 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. It's a situation when you feel hungry but are unable or cannot afford food. Difference between Chronic and Seasonal hunger:
(i) Chronic hunger
- It is a consequence of diets persistently inadequate in terms of quantity and/or quality.
- Poor people suffer from chronic hunger because of their very low incomes and inability to buy food even for survival.
(ii) Seasonal hunger
- It is related to the cycles of food growing and harvesting.
- This is prevalent in rural areas because of the seasonal nature of agricultural activities.
- In urban areas, casual labourers are unable to get work for the entire year which makes them hungry.
Question 12. What is a ‘famine’? Which states in India are affected by famines?
Answer
A famine is characterised by widespread deaths due to starvation and epidemics caused by forced use of contaminated water or decaying food and loss of body resistance due to weakening from starvation:
- The most devastating famine that occurred in India was the Famine of Bengal in 1943. This famine killed 30 lakh people in the province of Bengal.
- Even today, there are places like Kalahandi and Kashipur in Orissa, where famine-like conditions have been existing for many years and starvation deaths have also been reported.
- Starvation deaths have also been reported in Baran district of Rajasthan, Palamau district of Jharkhand and many other remote areas during recent years.