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CSAT 2016 paper

UPSC CSE CSAT 2016 · Question 70 · Reading comprehension

According to the above passage, which of the following helps/help in reducing hunger and…

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.

CSAT 2016 · Q70

Reading comprehension Medium

According to the above passage, which of the following helps/help in reducing hunger and starvation in the developing economies?

  1. 1.Balancing demand and supply of food
  2. 2.Increasing imports of food
  3. 3.Increasing purchasing power of the poor
  4. 4.Changing the food consumption patterns and practices

Select the correct answer using the code given below:

Answer & explanation

Answer: (c) 1 and 3 only

Supply-demand balance is called an 'inescapable prerequisite for warding off hunger and starvation', and hunger persists where the poor lack purchasing power. So balancing supply and demand and raising the purchasing power of the poor both help; imports and changes in diet are not offered as remedies.

  • ✓ 1. Supply-demand balance is 'an inescapable prerequisite for warding off hunger and starvation'.
  • ✗ 2. Buying food abroad is mentioned only for open economies with 'adequate exchange surpluses', not as a remedy for poor economies.
  • ✓ 3. Food does not move to deficit countries 'if the latter lack in purchasing power'; hunger comes from 'empty-pocket hungry mouths'.
  • ✗ 4. The changing 'composition of demand' is a reason the issue has grown, not a remedy.

Remember · Separate what the passage gives as a cause of the problem from what it gives as a remedy; only remedies count here.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2016, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). ·

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