Food security includes following stages : (a) Adequate availability of food grains to all. (b) Adequate availability of food grains and pulses to all. (c) Adequate availability of food grains, pulses, milk and vegetables to all. (d) Adequate availability of food grains, pulses, milk products, vegetables, fruits, meat and fish etc. Answer options :
- (1)Only (d)
- (2)(a) and (b)
- (3)(a), (b) and (c)
- (4)(a), (b), (c) and (d)
Correct — option (4), (a), (b), (c) and (d). Read the four statements side by side and they are not four rival definitions of food security but one ladder, each rung containing the one below it and adding to it: cereals alone, then cereals plus pulses, then cereals, pulses, milk and vegetables, and finally the full basket of grains, pulses, milk products, vegetables, fruits, meat and fish. The stem says food security 'includes following stages' — it is asking which of these are stages, and every one of them is. That is exactly how the idea has widened in practice. The first concern of Indian food policy after Independence was the sheer availability of foodgrains, because the memory of the Bengal famine and the import dependence of the 1950s and 1960s made cereal supply the binding problem; the Green Revolution, the buffer stock and the public distribution system were all built to answer that first stage. Once cereal availability was broadly secure, the deficiency that remained was protein, which put pulses on the agenda; then the micronutrient deficiencies — iron, vitamin A, calcium — which are addressed by milk and vegetables rather than by more grain; and finally the recognition that a genuinely secure diet is a balanced one, which is what statement (d) describes and what is now usually called nutritional security. Each earlier stage is a real historical and analytical phase of the concept, not a wrong answer, so the truncating options each cut the ladder short.
- (1)Only (d) — Taking statement (d) alone is the most tempting error, because statement (d) is the fullest and most modern description of food security and a candidate who knows that nutritional security is the current goal will reach for it. But the stem asks for the stages, in the plural, and a stage is a step on the way, not only the destination. Discarding statements (a), (b) and (c) denies that cereal adequacy and then protein adequacy were ever stages of food security at all — which would write the whole of India's cereal-centred food policy, from the buffer stock to the public distribution system, out of the concept.
- (2)(a) and (b) — Statements (a) and (b) stop the ladder at cereals and pulses. That is the stage at which India's statutory entitlement still largely sits — the National Food Security Act, 2013 defines its entitlement in foodgrains, that is rice, wheat and coarse cereals — so a candidate anchored to the legal position may well stop here. But the question is about the concept and its stages, not about what any one statute delivers, and both statement (c) and statement (d) describe stages that are recognised in the literature and pursued by policy through milk, horticulture and nutrition programmes.
- (3)(a), (b) and (c) — This takes statements (a), (b) and (c) and drops only statement (d), stopping one rung short at grains, pulses, milk and vegetables. It is the hardest of the three wrong choices to reject on a quick reading, because it already looks generous. The omission matters, though: statement (d) is the stage at which food security becomes nutritional security, adding fruits and animal protein and so covering the fats, vitamins and minerals that a grain-pulse-vegetable diet can still leave short. Dropping it treats the most complete stage as if it were outside the concept.
Food security is a moving definition, and the movement is the point of this question. In its earliest and narrowest sense it meant enough foodgrain in the country to feed the population — a supply problem, answered by production, imports, buffer stocks and public distribution. The internationally accepted formulation adopted at the 1996 World Food Summit is much broader: food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. That definition is conventionally unpacked into four dimensions — availability, access, utilisation and stability — of which the statements in this question are tracking only the first, availability, but tracking it across a widening basket of foods. The ladder printed here is therefore the history of the concept compressed into four lines: from calories, to protein, to micronutrients, to a balanced diet. The final rung is what is now usually distinguished as nutritional security, the recognition that a household can be food-secure in cereals and still be undernourished.
MPSC's economy section returns often to food security because it sits at the junction of agriculture, public finance and welfare administration, and because Maharashtra runs both a large public distribution network and significant horticulture and dairy sectors. The habit this question rewards is noticing that its four statements are nested rather than competing: whenever a statement list reads as a series of ever-larger circles, the examiner is almost always asking about the evolution of a concept, and the answer that includes all of them deserves a serious look. The opposite habit — hunting for the single 'best' definition and rejecting the rest as incomplete — is what makes a candidate pick the fullest statement alone. Read the stem's own noun: it says stages, and a stage that has been superseded was still a stage.
- The 1996 World Food Summit definition holds that food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food meeting their dietary needs and preferences for an active and healthy life.
- Food security is conventionally analysed along four dimensions — availability, access, utilisation and stability — so adequate supply alone is only the first of them, and a household can face hunger in a country with full granaries.
- The National Food Security Act, 2013 frames its legal entitlement in foodgrains — rice, wheat and coarse cereals — for eligible households, which places the statutory guarantee at the cereal rung of the ladder rather than at the full-diet rung.
- Nutritional security is the term used for the fullest stage, in which the diet supplies not only calories from cereals but protein from pulses and animal foods and micronutrients from milk, vegetables and fruits.
- India's cereal-first food policy — the Green Revolution, minimum support prices, buffer stocks and the public distribution system — was built to answer the availability problem described in the first statement, which is why that stage remains a real part of the concept's history.
- (a) Foodgrains for all — post-Independence cereal availability; the Green Revolution, buffer stocks, the PDS
- (b) + pulses — once cereals were broadly secure, the remaining deficiency was PROTEIN
- (c) + milk and vegetables — the micronutrient gap (iron, vitamin A, calcium), which more grain cannot close
- (d) + milk products, fruit, meat and fish — a balanced diet: what is now called nutritional security
The stem asks which of these ARE stages. Every rung is a real historical and analytical phase of the concept, so each truncating option simply cuts the ladder short.
- Reading the four statements as competing definitions and choosing the fullest one alone, when the stem's word 'stages' makes each earlier rung part of the answer
- Equating food security with food availability, and so missing that access, utilisation and stability are equally part of the accepted definition
- Assuming the statutory entitlement under the food security law extends to pulses, milk and vegetables, when it is framed in foodgrains
- Treating nutritional security and food security as interchangeable, when the first is the stage the second grows into
Food security appears in MPSC papers in three recognisable shapes: a definitional statement list of the kind set here, a factual item on the National Food Security Act and its entitlements or coverage limits, and a data or scheme question on the public distribution system, buffer stocks or the mid-day meal and nutrition programmes. The definitional versions tend to be answered by reading the stem's own noun carefully — stages, dimensions, objectives, features — because that noun decides whether a nested list is inclusive or exclusive. Expect the four-dimension framework and the Act's coverage figures to be worth carrying into the exam hall verbatim.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The four dimensions along which food security is conventionally analysed are availability, access, stability and which one of the following ?
- (a)Affordability
- (b)Utilisation
- (c)Production
- (d)Distribution
Answer(b) Utilisation — the four accepted dimensions are availability (enough food is supplied), access (households can obtain it physically and economically), utilisation (the body can actually use it, which depends on diet quality, safe water, sanitation and health) and stability (all three hold over time). Affordability is part of access; production and distribution are means to availability rather than dimensions in their own right.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The entitlement guaranteed to eligible households under the National Food Security Act, 2013 is defined in terms of which of the following ?
- (a)Foodgrains — rice, wheat and coarse cereals
- (b)Foodgrains and pulses
- (c)Foodgrains, pulses and edible oil
- (d)A full balanced diet including milk and vegetables
Answer(a) Foodgrains — rice, wheat and coarse cereals. The Act's guarantee is a cereal entitlement for eligible households through the public distribution system, together with maternity benefit and meal entitlements for children and pregnant and lactating women. Pulses, milk, vegetables and oil are pursued through other programmes, not through the Act's household grain entitlement.