Improvement In Food Resources

The cereals (i.e., wheat, rice, maize, millets and sorghum) provide our body carbohydrates. The pulses (i.e., gram, pea, black gram, green gram, pigeon pea, lentil, etc.) are source of protein. Fruits and vegetables give us carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, and lots of fibers for metabolism of body.

Crop rotation is one of the methods of crop production that ensures high yield of crops. It is the method of growing two or more varieties of crops on the same land in sequential seasons. This method insure the stability in the soil profile across the field and helps in replenishment of soil nutrient levels.

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Inter-cropping is one of the methods of crop production that ensures high yield. It is the method of growing two or more varieties of crops on the same land in a definite pattern. These crops being having different nutrient requirements are grown in definite pattern. Inter-cropping helps in preventing pests throughout the field. It also helps to increase increases soil fertility, whereas crop rotation prevents soil depletion, increases soil fertility, and reduces disease spreading across the field.

Manure and fertilizers are added to the soil of crop field to increase the fertility of soil and productivity of crop. They overcome the deficiency of nutrients in the soil of the field.

The main advantage of intercropping and crop rotation is that the farmer has security against crop failure and also different crops add to higher level of production. The different crops also provide nutrients to each other like leguminous plants.

Genetic manipulation is a process where the gene for a desirable character is introduced inside the nucleus of a cell.

The way in which genetic manipulation is useful in agriculture practices are:

1. Genetic manipulation helps in obtaining desirable agronomic characters liked Dwarfness in cereals and tallness and profuse branching in fodder crops.

2. It is useful in developing varieties with higher yield, good quality, biotic and abiotic resistance, short maturity period, wider adopt ability and desirable agronomic (the science of soil management and the production of field crops) characteristics.

Grains may be lost in the pre-harvest, harvest and post-harvest stages. The factors can be

1) Biotic — insects, rodents, fungi, mites and bacteria

2) Abiotic — Inappropriate moisture and temperatures in the place of storage.

These factors cause degradation in quality, loss in weight, poor germinability, discolouration of produce, all leading to poor marketability of the product.

Good animal husbandry practices increases the production of animal products. This in turn increases the profit of farmers.Due to healthy husbandry practices it keeps their animal stocks healthy. Hence, less time and effort is spent on nursing the sick animals and preventing other animals from falling sick and it also meets the demands for milk, meat and eggs.

Benefits of cattle farming:

1) Good quality and quantity of milk can be produced and it can add to the income of the farmer.

2) Draught labour animals can be produced and used in agricultural work.

3) New variety that are resistant to diseases can be produced by crossing two varieties with the desired traits.

The common traits that are common in Poultry, FIsheries and Beekeeping are variety improvement, housing, rearing, sanitation, disease control and marketing of products.

1) Capture fishing - The fish are caught from various natural resources, lakes, rivers, oceans, seas, etc.

2) Mariculture - Culture of marine fish is done from the coastal water. The desired marine fish and and other animals are cultivated for further use.

3) Aquaculture- In aquaculture, culturing of fish is done using any water body which may contain salt water of fresh water. Mariculture is a type of aquaculture.

Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants for commercial use such as for food, fuel, fiber, etc.

Some desirable characteristics for crop improvement are:

1. Tallness and abundant branching are desirable characters for fodder crops.
2. Dwarfness is desired in cereals so that less nutrients are consumed by these crops.

Crop production can go down due to:-

(i) Biotic factors such as pests, weeds and diseases reduce the crop production. A pest causes damage to our crops by feeding. Weeds also reduce crop productivity by competing with the main crop for nutrients and light.

(ii) abiotic factors such as natural factor like temperature , wind can affect the net crop production. For example droughts and floods have a great impact on crops sometimes, destroying the entire crop.

The macronutrients are nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and sulphur. They are required by crop plants in large amounts and hence they are called Macronutrients.

There are three different sources from where a plant gets its 16 essential nutrients: air, water and soil. The nutrients taken from air and water are carbon, oxygen and hydrogen and these are absorbed by stomata (of leaf), lenticel (of stem) and root-hairs (of roots). The 13 nutrients are obtained by plants from soil through roots. These 13 nutrients remain dissolved in water present in the soil.

• Manure contains many organic substances of biological origin which can be easily degraded (broken down) and absorbed by plants.
• It helps in recycling of biological waste.
• Manure increase the fertility of soil for long duration without causing any harm (since they are natural and biodegradable).
• On contrary, chemical fertilizers (like urea) improve soil fertility for short duration but environmental problems. (chemical fertilizers are mostly nonbiodegradable)
• Continuous use of fertilizers in crop fields makes soil less fertile.

The conditions of (c) will give the most benefits because all conditions are fulfilled to get good crop productions. High quality seeds germinate properly and grow to healthy crop plants. Irrigation helps crop plants to fight against drought conditions Fertilizers provide desired nutrients and crop protection measures (e.g., use of pesticides, etc.) protect the crop plants from diseases, weeds and pests.

Preventive measures (such as use of resistant varieties of crops) and biological control methods should be used for protection of crops as they are ecologically safe, target specific pest and are harmless to other forms of life.

There are two main factors responsible for loss during storage. THey are:

Biotic factors and Abiotic factors

A. Biotic factors: The living organisms that include

1) Insects,e.g grubs of pulse beetle; grubs and adults of rice weevil; wheat weevil; caterpillar of grain and flour moth; larvae and adult of rust red flour beetle; larvae and adult of rust red flour beetle; larvae of rice moth and grubs and adults of lesser grain borer.

2) Rodents, e.g., striped squirrel house rat, house mouse, lesser bandicoot rat, etc.

3) Birds, e.g., parakeet, sparrow, bulbul, blue rock pigeon, crow, etc.

4) Miters;

5) Fungi; and

6) Bacteria.

B. Abiotic factors. They include moisture, temperature and other non-living environmental factors like lack of ventilation and light.

• Cross breeding is the method that is used for improving cattle breeds.
• Cross breeding between two varieties of cattle having desirable characters will produce a new improved variety.
• For example, the cross between foreign breeds such as Jersey Brown, Swiss (having long lactation periods) and Indian breeds such as Red Sindhi, Sahiwal (having excellent resistance power against diseases) produces a new variety having qualities of both breeds.

Poultry birds eat and utilize agricultural products which are unfit for human consumption and considered as waste. In return, they give us eggs and high quality meat which serve as a cheap source of animal protein.

In both dairy and poultry farming, the practices followed commonly are:

(i) Maintenance of temperature

(ii) Proper housing facilities having hygienic conditions

(iii) Proper and nutritious feeding facilities

(iv) Prevention and control of diseases and pests.

The desirable character of bee varieties suitable for honey production are:

1) They sting less.

2) They stay for longer periods in a given bee hive.

3) They breed well and healthy.

4) They produce comparatively more honey and wax per season.

There are two methods of obtaining fish.

The first method is to capture fish from natural water sources such as freshwater resources (i.e., canals, pools, reservoirs and rivers), brackish water resources (i.e., estuaries and lagoons) and marine fishery resources (i.e., coastline and deep seas)

The other method involves culturing. Feeding, breeding and are fish production. Fish farming is based on aquaculture which includes production of useful aquatic plants and animals such as fish, prawns, crayfish, lobsters, crabs, shrimps, mussels, oysters and seaweeds by proper utilization of available waterbodies in the country. Aquaculture includes mariculture and freshwater culture fisheries.

Pasturage is the availability of flowers for nectar and pollen collection for the honeybee. The quality, taste and aroma of the honey is determined by the kind and quantity of pasturage.

• Composite fish culture is also called polyculture of fishes.
• It is advantageous as it is economical and profitable from business point of view.
• It has greater yield. Upto 8 to 9 times as compared to monoculture.
• In composite fish culture, 5 or 6 species of fast growing fish are cultured in single fish pond which do not compete with each other for space and nutrition.