Class 9 Chapter 4 Food Security in India
Very Short Answer Type Questions. [1 Mark]
1. What is food security?
Ans. As stated by United Nations’ Committee Food security is defined as the means that all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life.
2. What do you mean by famine?
Ans. The condition of widespread death due to starvation and epidemic, caused by forced use of contaminated water or decaying of food and loss of body resistance due to weakening from starvation.
3. Why food security is needed in a country?
Ans. Food security is needed to ensure the food at all times.
II. Short Answer Type Questions. [3 Marks]
1. State the three dimension of food security
Ans. The three dimensions of food security are
(i) Availability of food: There should be enough stocks of food items in the country through good production, through imports or previous year’s stock stored in government godowns.
(ii) Accessibility of food: Food should be within the reach of everybody.
(iii) Affordability of food: The prices of different food particles should be such that every individual is able to buy them. The foodgrain items should be within the reach of the people.
2. Why it is the duty of the government to ensure food security to all the citizens at all the time?
Ans. It is the duty of the government to ensure food security to all the citizens at all the time because:
(i) Food is a fundamental human right just as air, water, etc.
(ii) People below the poverty line are prone to acute shortage of food all the time.
(iii) Even the people above the poverty line also face food insecurity during the time of natural disasters or calamity.
3. How food security is affected by a disaster?
Ans. In case of natural calamities like drought, flood etc total production of food grain decreases. This results in a shortage of food in affected areas, which in turn increases the prices of food grains. At times people are unable to afford the buying of food grains at much higher prices. In such situations, some people are unable to buy food. If such calamity happens in a very wide area or is stretched over a longer period, it may cause a situation of starvation. Massive starvation might take a turn of famine. So food security in a region must be ensured in order to prevent such conditions to happen.
Long Answer Type Questions. [5 Marks]
1. Food security is ensured in a country only if:
(i) Enough food is available for all persons.
(ii) All persons have the capacity to buy food of acceptable quality.
(iii) There is no barrier to access to food.
2. Discuss the role of the government in the stabilization of food grain prices.
Ans. Our government has adopted the following measures to stabilise foodgrain prices.
(i) The government has often resorted to importing food grains whenever it became necessary. For example, it entered into the PL 480 agreement with the USA in 1956 to import food grain to face the food crisis in the country.
(ii) The government tries to maintain price stability through buffer stocks. It buys food grains during crop season when prices fall and sells them when prices tend to rise in times of shortage. Had the government not purchased the foodgrains, their prices might have fallen due to increased supply in the market. Similarly, in the times of shortage, when these foodgrains are supplied to the consumers at subsidised prices, their prices do not rise much and people are benefitted.
I. Very Short Answer Type Questions. [1 Mark]
1. Which parts of India account for the largest number of food-insecure people in the country?
Ans. The Eastern and South-Eastern UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, parts of Madhya Pradesh, parts of Maharashtra account for the largest number of food-insecure people in the country.
2. Who are insecure in terms of food in urban areas?
Ans. In urban areas casual labourers, ill-paid workers of the unorganized sectors such as rickshaw pullers, ladies working as a domestic worker, construction sites, etc. and people involved in seasonal activities are insecure in terms of food as their level of income is fluctuating throughout the year.
3. Which is the worst affected food insecure group in rural areas?
Ans. Landless people with little or no land to depend upon are worst affected people in rural areas.
4. Name the two types of hunger.
Ans. The two types of hunger are chronic hunger and seasonal hunger.
5. What do you mean by chronic hunger?
Ans. Chronic hunger is the situation of persistent inadequacy in both qualitative as well as a quantitative diet because of low income and inability to purchase food even for survival.
6. What do you mean by seasonal hunger?
Ans. Seasonal hunger refers to the situation when a person suffers the insufficiency in diet during some part of the year especially due to the seasonal nature of agriculture. This kind of hunger generally prevails in rural areas.
7. Which new strategy in agriculture was adopted by India after independence?
Ans. India adopted the strategy of Green Revolution especially in the production of wheat and rice.
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