Strategies for Enhancement in Food Production

With the growing global population, there is a constant need to improve both the quantity and quality of food. The chapter Strategies for Improvement in Food Production introduces students to different scientific methods and strategies to achieve the goal of improved food quality. To enhance food production, biological concepts utilized in plant breeding and animal husbandry play a significant role.

This Story also Contains

1. What is Food Enhancement?
2. Plant Breeding
3. Plant Breeding for Improved Food Quality
4. Animal Husbandry
5. Tissue Culture
6. How to Enhance Food Production?
7. Recommended Video on Strategies for Enhancement in Food Production

Embryo transfer technology and tissue culture techniques are two of the new methods essential in improving food production even further. It explains key techniques such as plant breeding, animal husbandry, and biotechnology that play a major role in transforming modern agriculture and ensuring better food availability. The chapter, Strategies for Enhancement in Food Production, is an important part of the Class 12 syllabus of biology.

What is Food Enhancement?

Food enhancement is the varied techniques that are used to improve food productivity through biological, chemical and biotechnological means. All of these are done with the purpose of raising crop yields, the productivity of livestock and agricultural sustainability. The traditional strategies include plant breeding and animal husbandry, while modern strategies include genetic engineering and biotechnology.

Also Read:

• Artificial Insemination

• Animal Husbandry Food Animals

• Agriculture Agricultural Practices

Plant Breeding

In plant breeding, desirable characteristics in plants are selected and bred together to produce improved varieties. This process is considered one of the best practices of crop production, aiming to ensure better quality, higher yields, and resistance to diseases and environmental stress.

• The technique is applied in developing resistant crops against certain diseases, pests, and environmental stresses such as drought and heat.

• Improvements are also made in crop productivity and in nutrient value.

• Plant breeding can be one of the greatest strategies and can even be studied as a strategy to improve food production.

• Crop production is the process of achieving the desired characteristics, such as high yield, high quality, and resistance to various plant diseases.

• The Green Revolution included increasing food production to meet the needs of the people.

• India's Green Revolution was popularised by Sir M.S. Swaminathan.

For such reasons, modern methods and techniques are used, such as the use of

• agriculture fertilisers

• pesticides

• high-yielding plants

• irrigation equipment

High-yielding wheat varieties and rice have had a significant impact on the increase in grain production. In order to increase yields, improve quality, tolerate environmental stress, and develop resistance to various pathogens and pests, plant breeding is done. All over the world, various governments and businesses are running their own crop production programs.

The steps taken to produce a variety of plant genes are:

• Variety of Collections- Includes collections of all kinds of given plants. All the various alleles are collected in all genes of the plant. It is known as the germplasm collection.

• Parent identification and selection- With the desired feature, the germplasm is examined.

• Cross-hybridisation- Two desired characteristics are mixed, e.g. a high-protein plant is bred with disease-resistant plants.

• Selection and testing of high-quality recombinants: For homozygosity, hybrids with desirable traits are selected and pollinated for different generations. For the next generation, this ensures that the characters do not part.

• Proper control of crop quality and other factors: Disease tolerance is introduced to make new plants. For this reason, the crop is grown in the research area and under controlled conditions.

Plant Breeding for Improved Food Quality

Plant breeding plays a key role in enhancing not just the yield and resistance of crops but also their nutritional quality. Here are some strategies to improve food production:

1. Biofortification

Biofortification is usually defined as the enrichment of nutrients. The level and content of various nutrients like proteins, oils, vitamins, micronutrients, minerals, etc., have been enhanced by improved nutritional plants. Various vegetables that are rich in vitamins and minerals have been published by the IARI (Indian Agricultural Research Institute) in New Delhi. Examples: Iron-rich rice, Vitamin A-rich sweet potatoes, and Protein-enriched pulses.

2. Single-cell protein (SCP)

Single-cell protein is one of the most important sources of protein and can meet the nutritional needs of an ever-increasing human population. SCP refers to the protein obtained from microbial sources, such as bacteria, yeast, algae, and fungi. Example: Due to the high rate of growth and production of biomass, the Methylophilus methylotrophus (a bacterium) can produce 25 tons of protein. The growing industry is the processing of edible mushrooms on a large scale.

Animal Husbandry

Animal husbandry relates to breeding and rearing animals for the production of meat, milk, eggs, and wool. It concerns the improvement of the genetic features of animals by selective breeding. Animal management also includes disease prevention measures and feed quality improvement to enhance productivity.

Animal husbandry is a branch of science that aims at human benefits by breeding, farming, and caring for various farm animals like cattle, sheep, horses and even dogs. Animal husbandry means the domestication and breeding of your choice of animals, which is an agricultural sector.

To support themselves, most farmers depend on livestock. Animals, especially bulls, are a major source of energy for farmers, in addition to providing milk and meat.

Animal husbandry care and management, for the benefit of humans on farm animals, when genetic and behavioural improvements are further developed, are considered beneficial to humans.

Animal Husbandry for Animal Health

A breed is a group of animals of the same species that have the same characteristics and appearance and are genetically related. There are two types of breeding, known as Inbreeding and Outbreeding.

1. Inbreeding

Refers to male and female reproduction up to 4 to 6 generations of the same species. High-quality males and females are selected and included in the same group.

• Inbreeding promotes homozygosity and, as in Mendel's experiment, is needed to develop clean lines or real breeding organisms.

• Breeding destroys undesirable genes, and it creates high-quality genes.

• Breeding stress is caused by continuous inbreeding. Here, production decreases, which can be restored by contact with higher, unrelated animals.

2. Outbreeding

It can be described as a union of animals that are not closely related. There may be three types of this:

• Outcrossing: Mating of animals within the same breed but with no common ancestors for 4-6 generations. This helps to overcome the stress from inbreeding.

• Cross-breeding: It is helpful to combine two types of breeds with higher characteristics. Higher males of the same species are associated with higher females of another breed for this reason. Example: Hisardale (sheep) is a cross of Bikaneri and Merino.

• Interspecific breeding: In this breed, mating occurs between females and males of two different related species. Usually, features appear from both parents and can be used for economic benefits. Example: Mule = Male donkey × Female horse - a hybrid that shows traits of both parents and is often sterile.

Different Branches of Animal Husbandry

Animal husbandry surrounds a wide range of activities that are important for food production and people's livelihoods, not only the traditional livestock and poultry industries. Meat, eggs, honey, fish, milk, and other animal-based goods are greatly enhanced by the contributions of these several branches.

1. Fisheries

The rise in the development of fish and other marine animals is associated with the Blue Revolution.

Aquaculture is used for the commercial breeding and rearing of aquatic plants (such as fish, molluscs, and crustaceans) and animals (including aquatic plants and algae). In seas, rivers, or lakes, extensive aquaculture is practised, while deep-water farming is practised in ponds and tanks.

2. Beekeeping (Apiculture)

It is the rearing of honeybees that makes honey also known as apiculture. Honey is a highly nutritious compound found in beehives. In various industries, beeswax is used to prepare cosmetics, polishes, etc. The most common bee species is Apis indica.

3. Poultry Farm Management

Poultry farm management involves the scientific and efficient care of domesticated birds, like hens, ducks, and turkeys, for egg and meat production. It includes proper housing, feeding, hygiene, disease control, and breeding practices to ensure healthy growth and high productivity. Good management helps in improving the quality of poultry products and ensures minimal loss due to infections or poor nutrition, making it a key part of animal husbandry in food production.

Tissue Culture

Tissue culture is a biotechnology-based technique in which the tissues of plants are grown in an artificial environment to give rise to new plants. This is one of the most important techniques for mass multiplying desirable traits in plants and can, therefore, be effectively used to propagate rare or endangered species.

• Totipotency is usually known as the ability of an explant (part of a plant) or cell to regenerate an entire plant.

• Micropropagation is one of the methods of using tissue culture, usually to grow thousands of plants. The medium needs to be nutritious.

• Somaclones: Each advanced tissue plant is called a somaclone and resembles mainly the parent plant. Various food crops such as tomatoes, apples, bananas, etc., are developed using commercial production methods.

• Somatic hybridisation: This is the process by which nude protoplasts (plasma membrane or protoplasts, after grinding a cell wall) are combined with cells of two types of plants with desirable characteristics.

• Plants grown by using such methods are known as somatic hybrids.

• Pomato was produced with the help of potatoes and tomatoes, but it lacked the desirable combination of ingredients to be used commercially.

How to Enhance Food Production?

Farmers and scientists employ a combination of traditional methods and modern approaches towards the improvement of food production:

• Development of high-yielding varieties and breeds that are also disease-resistant through plant breeding.

• Sustainable farming practices like organic farming, crop rotation and soil health for long-term productivity.

• Modern Use of genetic engineering and tissue culture for the development of varieties that have the potential to yield at much higher levels and also resist biotic and abiotic stresses.

Also Read:

• Agricultural implements

• Microbes In Human Welfare

• Biocontrol Agents

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