Comprehension For SBI PO Set

Comprehension For SBI PO Set – 49

Governments have traditionally equated economic progress with steel mills and cement factories. While hundreds of millions of farmers remain mired in poverty. However, fears of food shortage, a rethinking of anti-poverty priorities and the crushing recession in 2008 are causing a dramatic shift in world economic policy in favour of greater support for agriculture.

The last time when the world’s framers felt such love was in the 1970s. At the time, as food prices spiked, there was real concern that the world was facing a crisis in which the planet was simply unable to produce enough grain and meet for an expanding population. Governments across the developing world and international aid organizations plowed investment into agriculture in the early 1970s, while technological breakthroughs, like high-yield strains of important food crops, boosted production. The result was the green Revolution and food production exploded.

But the Green Revolution become a victim of its own success, Food prices plunged by some 60% by the late 1980s from their peak in the mid-1970s. Policy makers and aid workers turned their attention to the poor’s other pressing needs, such as health care and education. Farming got starved of resources and investment. By 2004, aid directed at agriculture sank to 3.5% and “Agriculture lost its glitter”. Also, as consumers in high-growth giants such as China and India became wealthier, they began eating more meat, so grain once used for human consumption got diverted to beef up livestock. By early 2008, panicked buying by importing countries and restrictions slapped on grain exports by some big producers helped drive prices upto heights not seen for three decades. Making matters worse, land and resources got reallocated to produce cash crops such as biofuels and the result was that voluminous reserves of grain evaporated. Protests broke out across the emerging world and fierce food riots toppled governments.

This spurred global leaders into action. This made them aware that food security is one of the fundamental issues in the world that has to be dealt with in order to maintain administrative and political stability. This also spurred the US, which traditionally provisioned food aid from American grain surpluses to help needy nations, to move towards investing in farm sectors around the globe to boost productivity. This move helped countries become more productive for themselves and be in a better position to feed their own people.

Africa, which missed out on the first Green Revolution due to poor policy and limited resources, also witnessed a “change’ poverty-fighting method favoured by many policy-makers in Africa was to get farmers off their farms into modern jobs in factories and urban centers. But that strategy proved to be highly insufficient. Income levels in the countryside badly trailed those in cities while the FAO estimated that the number of poor going hungry in 2009 reached an all-time high at more than one billion.

In India, on other hand, with only 40% of its farmland irrigated, entire economic boom currently underway is held hostage by the unpredictable monsoon. With much of India’s farming areas suffering from drought this year, the government will have tough time meeting its economic growth targets. in a report, Goldman sachs predicted that if this year too receives weak rains, it could cause agriculture to contract by 2% this fiscal year, making the government’s 7% GDP growth target look “a bit rich”. Another green revolution is the need of the hour and to make it a reality, the global community still has much backbreaking farm work to do.

1. What is the author’s main objective in writing the passage?

(a) Criticising developed countries for not bolstering economic growth in poor nations

(b) Analysing the disadvantages of the Green Revolution

(d) Making a case for the international society to engineer a second Green Revolution

(e) Rationalising the faculty agriculture policies of emerging countries

2. Which of the following in an adverse impact of the Green Revolution?

(a) Unchecked crop yields resulted in large tracts of land becoming barren

(b) Withdrawal of fiscal impetus from agriculture to other sectors.

(d) Farmers rioted as food prices fell so low that they could not make ends meet

(e) None of these

3. What is the author trying to convey through the phrase “making the government’s 7% GDP growth target look ‘a bit rich’?

(a) India is unlikely to achieve the targeted growth rate.

(b) Allocation of funds to agriculture has raised India’s chances of having a high GDP

(d) India is likely to have one of the highest GDP growth rates.

(e) A large portion of India’s GDP is contributed by agriculture

4. Which of the following factors was/were responsible for the neglect of the farming sector after the Green Revolution?

(A) Steel and cement sectors generated more revenue for the government as compared agriculture

(B) large-scale protests against favouring agriculture at the cost of other important sectors such as education and health care

(a) None (b) Only (C)

(d) Only (A) and (B)

(e) All the (A),( B) and( C)

5. What promoted leaders throughout the world to take action to boost the agriculture sector in 2008?

(a) Coercive tactics by the US which restricted food aid to poor nations

(b) The realization of the link between food security and political stability

(d) Reports that high-growth countries like China and India were boosting their agriculture sectors to capture the international markets

(e) Their desire to influence developing nations to slow down their industrial development

6. What motivated the US to focus on investing in agriculture across the globe?

(a) To make developing countries become more reliant on US aid

(b) To ensure grain surpluses so that the US had to need to import food

(d) To establish itself in the market before the high-growth giants such as India and China could establish themselves

(e) None of these

7. What impact did the economic recession of 2008 have on agriculture?

(a) Governments equated economic stability with industrial development and shifted away from agriculture

(b) lack of implementation of several innovative agriculture programmes owing to shortage of funds

(d) The GDP as targeted by India was never achieved because of losses in agriculture

(e) None of these

8. What encouraged African policy-makers to focus on urban jobs?

(a) Misapprehension that it would alleviate poverty as it did in other countries

(b) Rural development outstripped urban development in many parts of Africa

(d) Blind imitation of western models of development

(e) None of these

9. Which of the following had contributed to exorbitant food prices in 2008?

(A) Hoarding of foods stocks by local wholesalers, which inadvertently created a food shortage

(B) Exports of foodgrains was reduce by large producers

(a) None (b) ONLY (C)

(e) Only (B) and (c)

10. Which of the following is true about the state of agriculture in India at present?

(A) Of all the sectors, agriculture needs the highest allocation of funds

(B) Contribution of agriculture to India’s GDP this year would depend greatly upon the monsoon rains

(a) Only (A) and (c)

(b) Only (c)

(d) Only (B) and (c)

(e) None of these

Directions(Q.11-13):Choose the word/group of words which is most similar in meaning to the word printed in bold as used in the passage.

11. STARVED

(a) Deprived

(b) Disadvantages

(d) Fasting

(e) Emaciated

12. SLAPPED

(a) Beaten

(b) Imposed

(d) Avoided

(e) Persuaded

13. PLOWED

(a) cultivated

(b) Bulldozed

(d) Instilled

(e) Withdrew

Directions (Q.14-15):Choose the word/group of words which is most OPPOSITE in meaning to the word printed in bold as used in the passage.

14. PRESSING

(a) Unpopular

(b) Undemanding

(d) unsuitable

(e) Unimportant

15. EVAPORATED

(a) Absorbed

(b) Accelerated

(d) Plunged

(e) Mismanaged

Answer key:

1. (d) 2. (b) 3. (a) 4. (b) 5. (b) 6. (c) 7. (c) 8. (a) 9. (e) 10. (c) 11. (a) 12. (b) 13. (d) 14. (e) 15. (c)

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Comprehension For SBI PO Set – 49