Q1.
Imagine that your state received less than normal monsoon rains for two consecutive years. Which items are likely to disappear from your meals, or are likely to become difficult to access?
Answer
Method. Sort your food list into three groups by how thirsty each crop is and how much it depends on rain rather than irrigation. The thirstiest, least irrigated crops vanish first.
| Order in which things go | Items | Why |
|---|---|---|
| First — almost at once | Green vegetables and leafy saag; tomatoes, brinjal, bhindi; fresh fruit | Short-lived, need frequent watering, and are grown mostly by small rain-fed farmers close to the market |
| Second — after one poor monsoon | Rice and other kharif crops — maize, jowar, bajra, groundnut, cotton, sugarcane | Kharif crops “are dependent on the timely arrival of the monsoons”. Rice needs standing water. Less rain means less sowing in June–July. |
| Third — after the second poor monsoon | Wheat, gram, mustard, peas — the rabi crops | Rabi is sown in November and depends on soil moisture, wells, ponds and canals left behind by the monsoon. Two dry years empty those stores. |
| Also affected | Milk, curd, ghee, eggs, meat | Cattle and poultry need fodder and drinking water; fodder is the first thing to fail in a drought |
| Hardest hit | Pulses and edible oils | Largely grown on rain-fed land with little irrigation, so their prices rise sharply |
What “difficult to access” really means. Food does not disappear from the country — it disappears from the plate of the family that cannot pay for it. Shortage pushes prices up, so items are still on the shop shelf but out of reach. The chapter's own warning fits here: excessive or failed rainfall causes “significant distress to farmers and their families in particular”.
Why it happens: a monsoon failure does not strike once. Year one takes the kharif crop and empties the wells, ponds and soil moisture. Year two therefore takes the rabi crop as well — the damage adds up instead of cancelling out.
Tip: notice which items on your list would not vanish — those grown with assured irrigation, or brought from a state whose monsoon was normal. That is exactly why the chapter says irrigation “enables farming even in areas with low rainfall” and helps “ensure a more stable food supply for the country”.