Food Production Management
Category : 6th Class
Food Production and Management
Synopsis
- Agriculture is the science or practice of growing crops.
- Plants of the same kind are grown and cultivated at one place on a large scale are called crops.
- There are three main crop seasons -
(i) Kharif (June-September), e.g., rice, jute, maize, groundnut and cotton.
(ii) Rabi (October-March), e.g., wheat, mustard, potato, barley and gram.
(iii) Summer crops.
- The steps involved in cultivating a crop are as follows.
- Ploughing, levelling and manuring the soil.
- Sowing seeds at the correct depth and with right spaces between them. Some seeds are sown in nurseries and the seedlings are then transplanted to the main field.
- Improving soil fertility by adding manure and chemical fertilizers and also by adopting methods like crop rotation and leaving the field fallow.
- Ensuring irrigation at the right time.
- Protecting crops from weeds, pests and diseases either by using chemicals or by using natural methods.
- Harvesting, threshing and winnowing.
- Legumes are often used in crop rotation, because the nitrogen fixing bacteria which live in their roots improve soil fertility.
- Nitrogen fixation is a part of the nitrogen cycle, which is, continued cycling of nitrogen from the air to the soil and to living organisms.
- Grains are stored in silos or god owns that have been fumigated. Buffer stock is maintained for emergencies.
- Scientists have developed hybridisation processes to grow disease resistant varieties of plants. The earliest success is the production of high-yielding varieties of plants which led to increase in the production of food crops. This is often referred to as the Green Revolution.
- The branch of agriculture dealing with the rearing of farm animals is called animal husbandry.
- Animals give us milk, meat and eggs. Animal products are an excellent source of protein. Animal proteins are superior to plant proteins. Egg white contains the protein albumen.
