7 October: buffer stocks and food prices
Wednesday 7 October 2026
GS Paper 3 · 250 words · 15 marks
Elucidate the importance of buffer stocks for stabilizing agricultural prices in India. What are the challenges associated with the storage of buffer stock? Discuss.
(UPSC Mains 2024, GS Paper 3, Q14)
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How to approach this question
What the question asks.
| Part | What to write |
|---|---|
| Elucidate the importance of buffer stocks for stabilising prices | How buying and selling from stock steadies prices, for farmers and for consumers |
| What are the challenges of storage? | Capacity, quality loss, cost, and stocks far above the norm |
| Discuss | A view, and steps that would fix the problems |
A shape that works in 250 words.
- Introduction. What a buffer stock is and who holds it.
- Importance. A floor for farmers, a ceiling for consumers, food security. One example of each.
- Storage challenges. Three problems, each with a figure or an audit.
- Way forward. Two or three steps.
What to avoid.
| Mistake | What to do instead |
|---|---|
| Describing the PDS at length | Keep to prices and storage, which is what the question asks |
| Only the consumer side | Say how procurement protects farmers' prices too |
| Treating a bigger stock as always better | Say why stocks far above the norm cost money and grain |
| "Storage must be improved" | Name the scheme or the change |
A model answer
A buffer stock is grain the government holds to steady supply and prices. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) and state agencies buy wheat and rice at the minimum support price (MSP) for the central pool.
How buffer stocks steady prices
- A floor for farmers. Procurement at MSP stops prices collapsing after the harvest.
- A ceiling for consumers. Releases from stock cool market prices. From June 2023, FCI sold wheat in weekly e-auctions under the Open Market Sale Scheme. Bharat Atta was sold at Rs 27.50 a kg from November 2023.
- Food security. The stock supplies free grain to about 81.35 crore people under PMGKAY, extended for five years from January 2024.
- Beyond cereals. The Price Stabilisation Fund, set up in 2014-15, holds buffers of pulses and onions.
Storage challenges
- Stocks far above the norm. On 1 July 2025 the central pool held 736.61 lakh tonnes of rice and wheat, against a norm of 411.20 lakh tonnes (PIB).
- Quality loss. The CAG found that 4.72 lakh tonnes of wheat worth Rs 700 crore deteriorated in open storage in Punjab between 2011 and 2016.
- Cost. Carrying excess grain raises the food subsidy bill.
Way forward
- Decentralise storage. The cooperative grain storage plan of 2023 aims to add 700 lakh tonnes of capacity at primary agricultural credit societies.
- Sell stock above the norm in time, through open market sales.
- Review the buffer norms, which were set in 2015.
Word count: 232.
Why this answer works. It explains both sides of price stability, for farmers and for consumers. The storage problems rest on PIB and CAG figures. The way forward answers the problems the answer named.
Where it could be stronger. It could give the share of central pool stock held in open cover-and-plinth storage, from a recent FCI or parliamentary figure.