Comprehension

The agriculture sector has experienced buoyant growth in the past two years. The sector, which is the largest employer of workforce, accounted for a sizeable 18.8 per cent (2021- 22) in Gross Value Added (GVA) of the country registering a growth of 3.6 per cent in 2020-21 and 3.9 per cent in 2021-22. Growth in allied sectors including livestock, dairy and fisheries has been the major drivers of overall growth in the sector. When measured in total value of agricultural production, India is ranked fourth largest in the world. Post-independence, there was a need to import food grains due to low-productivity, stagnant food-crop sector and poor rural infrastructure making food self-sufficiency a major national goal. The introduction of the Green Revolution then yielded spectacular results and we became one of the largest producers of many agricultural commodities such as rice, wheat, pulses, fruits and vegetables. From being a net importer of foods in the 1960s, India is now a net exporter, thanks to Indian farmers and the Indian agriculture input industry. & nbsp;

Question: 1

Which of the following is the largest exported agricultural product from India?

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Among major crops, India leads the world especially in rice exports — a key fact often tested in agriculture-related questions.
Updated On: Jul 10, 2026
  • Wheat
  • Sugar
  • Rice
  • Barley
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The Correct Option is C

Approach Solution - 1

A simple way to think about this is which of these four crops India is known worldwide for exporting in bulk.

  1. Wheat: India mostly grows wheat for its own huge population, and exports fluctuate depending on the domestic harvest and government policy.
  2. Sugar: India exports significant sugar, but production is also heavily used domestically and for ethanol blending, keeping export volumes moderate.
  3. Barley: Grown on a relatively small scale and consumed mostly within India, so it barely features in export statistics.
  4. Rice: India ships tens of millions of tonnes of rice abroad every year, more than any other country, making it clearly the top agricultural export.

Rice is the one crop where India is consistently the world's leading exporter, so that is the answer.

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Approach Solution -2

Another way to verify this is to think about which of these crops appears most often in trade discussions about India's export bans or curbs, since that reflects which crop dominates the export basket.

  1. Wheat: India has occasionally restricted wheat exports to manage domestic prices, but this reflects a smaller, more sensitive trade volume, not the largest export.
  2. Sugar: Sugar export policy is also adjusted from time to time, again pointing to a moderate rather than dominant export volume.
  3. Barley: Barley rarely comes up in export policy discussions at all, since so little of it leaves the country.
  4. Rice: Rice export curbs draw the most global attention precisely because India supplies such a large share of world rice trade, and any restriction affects international prices significantly.

The crop whose export policy moves world markets the most is rice, confirming it as India's largest agricultural export.

So the correct answer is Rice.

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Question: 2

According to provisional data released by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, India achieved record exports of agricultural products for the financial year FY22. What was the value of India’s agricultural products exports according to this data?

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Remember: India’s agricultural exports crossed the USD 50 billion mark for the first time in FY22 — a frequently cited statistic in economic surveys.
Updated On: Jul 10, 2026
  • USD 7.5 billion
  • USD 95.34 billion
  • USD 13.2 billion
  • USD 50.21 billion
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The Correct Option is D

Approach Solution - 1

One way to sanity-check this is to compare it with India's total merchandise exports for the same year, which were a few hundred billion dollars.

  1. USD 7.5 billion and USD 13.2 billion: These would make agriculture a very small sliver of India's total exports, which does not match how often agriculture is highlighted as a major contributor in trade data.
  2. USD 95.34 billion: This would make agriculture almost a quarter of total exports, an unusually large share that does not match agriculture's actual place in India's export mix.
  3. USD 50.21 billion: This is a sizeable but realistic share of total exports for agriculture, consistent with how the sector is usually described relative to industrial and services exports.

Weighing each figure against agriculture's realistic share of total trade points to USD 50.21 billion.

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Approach Solution -2

Another check is to think about the trend, since FY22 was reported as a record year, meaning the figure should be clearly higher than the years just before it.

  1. USD 7.5 billion: This is far too low to be described as a record breaking result for a sector that had already been exporting many times that amount in earlier years.
  2. USD 13.2 billion: Still well below what India's agricultural exports had already reached in prior years, so this cannot be a record.
  3. USD 95.34 billion: This would be an implausibly large jump from previous years, well beyond the sector's realistic growth pace.
  4. USD 50.21 billion: This represents a meaningful, believable rise over the prior year's agricultural export value, consistent with being reported as an all-time high.

The steady, believable jump to a new high fits USD 50.21 billion, making that the correct figure.

So the correct answer is USD 50.21 billion.

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Question: 3

India is the world’s largest producer of which of the following?

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Remember key Indian production rankings: - Milk → India (No. 1) - Rice → Among top producers, but not No. 1 (China leads) - Almonds → USA leads - Poultry meat → USA & China lead
Updated On: Jul 10, 2026
  • Poultry meat
  • Rice
  • Almonds
  • Milk
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The Correct Option is D

Approach Solution - 1

A good way to answer this is to think about which of these four products is tied to millions of small Indian farmers rather than large commercial farms, since that is how India's dairy sector is structured.

  1. Poultry meat: Global leaders in this category rely on large-scale industrial farming, a model India has not scaled to match.
  2. Rice: India grows huge amounts of rice, but China's even larger paddy area keeps it ahead in total output.
  3. Almonds: Almond farming needs specific climates found mainly in places like California, which India's geography does not replicate at scale.
  4. Milk: India's dairy output comes from tens of millions of small and marginal farmers, each keeping a few animals, and this widespread small-scale model is exactly what pushed India to the top of world milk production.

The small-farmer, cooperative dairy model is unique to India's milk sector, and it is what makes milk the answer.

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Approach Solution -2

Another way to confirm this is to recall any government programme associated with each product, since a major historical push often explains why a country leads in something.

  1. Poultry meat: India has growing poultry output, but no comparable nationwide movement pushed it to global leadership in this category.
  2. Rice: The Green Revolution boosted India's rice output significantly, but it did not make India the single largest rice producer, that remains China.
  3. Almonds: There has been no major Indian government programme aimed at almond cultivation, since the crop is not well suited to most of India's climate.
  4. Milk: Operation Flood, the cooperative dairy development programme launched in the 1970s, deliberately built the infrastructure that made India the world's top milk producer.

Only the dairy sector has a specific national movement behind its world-leading position, confirming milk as the correct answer.

So the correct answer is Milk.

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Question: 4

What is India’s ranking in the 2022 Global Hunger Index?

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Global indices often place India around the lower middle range — remembering approximate rank ranges helps eliminate extreme options.
Updated On: Jul 10, 2026
  • 10
  • 107
  • 50
  • 35
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The Correct Option is B

Approach Solution - 1

One way to check this is to compare India's position with its neighbouring countries, since the 2022 report was widely discussed for placing India behind them.

  1. 10, 50, and 35: Any of these ranks would put India ahead of, or at least close to, most of South Asia, which does not match the reporting at the time.
  2. 107: This rank placed India behind neighbours such as Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan in the same report, which is exactly the comparison that made the 2022 release so widely discussed.

Since the rank has to be low enough to fall behind most South Asian neighbours, the answer is 107.

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Approach Solution -2

Another way to approach this is to recall the controversy that followed the release, since the Indian government publicly disputed the report's findings, which usually happens only for very unfavourable rankings.

  1. 10: A near-top rank would draw praise, not a formal government objection.
  2. 50: A middling rank, while not flattering, would be unlikely to prompt a strong public rebuttal from the government.
  3. 35: This too is a reasonably respectable rank that would not typically trigger a methodology dispute.
  4. 107: A rank this low, near the bottom of the list, is exactly the kind of result that led the Indian government to publicly challenge the report's methodology in 2022.

The strength of the government's pushback fits only with a low rank, confirming 107 as the correct answer.

So the correct answer is 107.

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Question: 5

The National Commission on Farmers, constituted in December 2004, which recommended the C2+50% formula for calculation of the Minimum Support Price, was chaired by:

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MSP reforms and farmer welfare recommendations are strongly associated with M.S. Swaminathan.
Updated On: Jul 10, 2026
  • Ashok Gulati
  • P. Sainath
  • M.S. Swaminathan
  • Abhijit Sen
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The Correct Option is C

Approach Solution - 1

A useful shortcut here is to recall who is popularly credited with the specific C2+50% MSP recommendation, since that idea is closely tied to one name in Indian agricultural policy.

  1. Ashok Gulati: Known more for critiquing MSP policy and suggesting market-based reforms, not for originating the C2+50% formula.
  2. P. Sainath: Known for documenting the human cost of agrarian distress through journalism, not for drafting official MSP formulas.
  3. Abhijit Sen: Contributed to various agricultural policy committees, but the C2+50% recommendation is not attributed to him.
  4. M.S. Swaminathan: The C2+50% MSP formula is consistently credited to the commission he chaired, and farmer groups still refer to it as the Swaminathan Commission recommendation.

Since the C2+50% idea is tied specifically to Swaminathan's commission, he is the correct answer.

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Approach Solution -2

Another way to confirm this is to think about which of these four people is most associated with Indian agricultural science rather than journalism or general economics.

  1. Ashok Gulati: An economist focused on agricultural markets and trade policy, a different specialisation from farm science commissions.
  2. P. Sainath: A journalist, not a scientist or policy commission chairman.
  3. Abhijit Sen: An economist involved in food security and planning committees, but not a farm scientist.
  4. M.S. Swaminathan: A geneticist and agricultural scientist whose decades of work on crop science and farmer welfare made him the natural choice to head a national farmers' commission.

Given the scientific background needed to head a body making detailed farm-policy recommendations, only Swaminathan fits, confirming him as the chairman.

So the correct answer is M.S. Swaminathan.

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Question: 6

The bio-decomposer technology to avoid stubble burning around the Delhi NCR was developed by:

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Environmental agriculture innovations in India—especially related to stubble management—are frequently linked to ICAR–IARI (Pusa).
Updated On: Jul 10, 2026
  • Monsanto
  • Cargill
  • Biocon
  • ICAR, Pusa Campus
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The Correct Option is D

Approach Solution - 1

A simple filter here is public research institute versus private company, since government-funded agricultural research bodies typically develop this kind of low-cost farm technology.

  1. Monsanto, Cargill, and Biocon: All three are private, profit-driven companies whose core businesses, seeds and chemicals, commodity trading, and pharmaceuticals, have nothing to do with government-led stubble-burning solutions.
  2. ICAR, Pusa Campus: As a publicly funded agricultural research body, ICAR's Pusa institute regularly develops low-cost farm technologies for Indian farmers, and the bio-decomposer used near Delhi NCR is one such innovation.

Because this is a public-sector research solution rather than a commercial product, the developer is ICAR, Pusa Campus.

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Approach Solution -2

Another way to check this is to think about who benefits from and promotes the bio-decomposer, since it was rolled out as a government initiative rather than sold commercially by a company.

  1. Monsanto: Sells commercial seed and herbicide products to farmers rather than distributing a free decomposer as a government initiative.
  2. Cargill: Operates as a trader and processor of farm output, not as a distributor of a subsidised stubble-treatment technology.
  3. Biocon: Sells pharmaceutical products, with no involvement in farm-residue programmes.
  4. ICAR, Pusa Campus: The bio-decomposer was distributed to farmers through government agriculture departments as part of an official anti-stubble-burning drive, exactly the kind of rollout expected from a public research institute rather than a private company.

The government-led, subsidised distribution model points to ICAR's Pusa campus as the developer.

So the correct answer is ICAR, Pusa Campus.

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