Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R). Assertion (A) : Food security is necessary even in surplus food production years. Reason (R) : Starvation can still occur due to unequal distribution and lack of accessibility. Select the correct answer from the code given below :
- (a)Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)
- (b)(A) is true, but (R) is false
- (c)(A) is false, but (R) is true
- (d)Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A)
Correct — D, both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). The assertion is true because food security is defined in terms of people, not granaries. The 1996 World Food Summit definition, still the standard one, says 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' — note 'all people', 'at all times' and 'physical and economic access'. A record national harvest satisfies only one of the four recognised pillars, availability; the other three are access, utilisation and stability. The reason is true as well, and it is precisely the mechanism that makes the assertion true: if grain sits in central warehouses while a landless labourer's wages have collapsed, or if a remote village is cut off from a fair price shop, that household starves in a surplus year. Because (R) supplies exactly the causal link that makes (A) hold, the answer is (d) and not (a).
- (a)Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A) — This is the near-miss the question is built around. Both statements are indeed true, but they are not independent observations: unequal distribution and lack of access are the only reason a surplus year can still leave people hungry. Remove (R) and the assertion has no basis at all, which is the textbook test for 'correct explanation'.
- (b)(A) is true, but (R) is false — (R) is not false. It is the central finding of the modern economics of hunger: Amartya Sen's Poverty and Famines (1981) showed that famine can strike without any collapse in the aggregate availability of food, because particular occupational groups lose their exchange entitlements — the ability to command food with their labour, produce or wages.
- (c)(A) is false, but (R) is true — (A) is not false. India's own experience is the standing proof: the country has been a net foodgrain surplus producer for decades and still enacted the National Food Security Act in 2013 to guarantee subsidised grain to up to 75 per cent of the rural and 50 per cent of the urban population. A state does not build a public distribution system, buffer stocks and a food-security law if surplus production by itself ended hunger.
Food security is a household-level and individual-level idea, not a national-accounts one. Its four classic pillars are availability (enough food in the system), access (households can physically reach it and afford it), utilisation (the body can actually absorb it — clean water, sanitation, dietary quality) and stability (all three hold over time, through droughts, price shocks and lean seasons); recent FAO framing adds agency and sustainability as a fifth and sixth. National surplus speaks only to availability. Everything that decides whether a poor household eats — wages, prices, transport, ration entitlements, the functioning of the fair price shop — sits under access.
The intellectual anchor for this assertion-reason pair is Amartya Sen's entitlement approach, set out in Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (1981). Sen's argument was that famines are not usually caused by a shortage of food in the aggregate but by a collapse in what particular groups can command in exchange for what they own or do; his analysis of the Bengal famine of 1943 is the classic case. The policy corollary is direct: distribution instruments matter as much as production. That is the logic of India's buffer stocks, of the targeted public distribution system, and of the National Food Security Act, 2013 — all of them layered on top of a food-surplus economy. When you meet an assertion-reason item, do not stop at 'are both true'; ask whether the reason is the mechanism that produces the assertion, because that single further step separates option (a) from option (d).
- 1996 World Food Summit definition: food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for an active and healthy life
- Four pillars: availability, access, utilisation and stability — a bumper harvest addresses only the first
- Amartya Sen's Poverty and Famines (1981) established that famine can occur without a fall in aggregate food availability, through the failure of exchange entitlements; he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998
- The National Food Security Act, 2013 covers up to 75 per cent of the rural and 50 per cent of the urban population, and makes the eldest woman aged 18 or above the head of the household for the ration card
- Access failures are structural as well as economic — remoteness, leakage from the PDS, seasonal unemployment and price spikes can all bite in a year of record production
- Stopping at 'both statements are true' and marking (a) without testing whether (R) actually explains (A)
- Equating food security with self-sufficiency in foodgrain production — availability is only one of four pillars
- Forgetting utilisation: a household can have grain and still be malnourished if water, sanitation and dietary diversity are poor
UPPSC likes this topic as an assertion-reason or a statements item testing the concept; UPSC prefers the statutory detail — what the NFSA actually provides, who is covered, what the entitlement is — so pair the concept with the sections of the 2013 Act.
With reference to the provisions made under the National Food Security Act, 2013, consider the following statements: 1. The families coming under the category of 'below poverty line (BPL)' only are eligible to receive subsidised food grains. 2. The eldest woman in a household, of age 18 years or above, shall be the head of the household for the purpose of issuance of a ration card. 3. Pregnant women and lactating mothers are entitled to a 'take-home ration' of 1600 calories per day during pregnancy and for six months thereafter. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 and 2
- (b) 2 only
- (c) 1 and 3
- (d) 3 only
Answer(b) 2 only
The statutory expression of the same idea. India's answer to 'surplus production does not equal food security' is the NFSA, 2013, and UPSC tests exactly the access-side provisions this question is about — who is covered (not only BPL families) and who holds the ration card.
With reference to the National Food Security Act, which of the following statements is/are correct ? I. It will cover up to 75 percent rural and 50 percent urban population. II. Special focus on nutritional support to women and children. III. Eldest woman of above 18 years age will be head of household. Select the correct answer using the codes given below :
- (a) I and II are correct
- (b) II and III are correct
- (c) I, II and III are correct
- (d) None of these
Answer(c) I, II and III are correct
The same concept in UPPSC's own paper, from the policy side. The NFSA's coverage of 75 per cent rural and 50 per cent urban population, its nutritional focus on women and children, and the eldest-woman-as-head rule are all access and utilisation measures — the very pillars this 2025 assertion-reason item says a surplus harvest does not by itself deliver.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following is NOT among the four commonly listed pillars of food security?
- (a)Availability
- (b)Access
- (c)Utilisation
- (d)Self-sufficiency
Answer(d) Self-sufficiency — the four pillars are availability, access, utilisation and stability; self-sufficiency is a production goal, not a dimension of food security.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The proposition that famines can occur even without a decline in the total availability of food, because of a collapse in the exchange entitlements of particular groups, is associated with
- (a)Amartya Sen
- (b)Thomas Malthus
- (c)Gunnar Myrdal
- (d)Simon Kuznets
Answer(a) Amartya Sen — the entitlement approach set out in Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (1981).