Food is the most necessary resource for all living organisms. Like a car needs fuel, all living beings need food for proper functioning. Everything from plants to fungi, all living organisms need food to stay alive. Primarily, food is grown in fields by farmers, but, along with farming, there are various strategies from which we can obtain food. The global population is increasing daily, so it becomes necessary to enhance food production.
Strategies in the enhancement of food notes
As the population multiplies, it becomes impertinent to increase food production to match the global demands. Scientists have developed various techniques to increase food production, including tissue culture and embryo transfer technologies.
Animal husbandry
Animal husbandry is the method of breeding animals to extract resources from them. These include cows, buffaloes, fishes, honey bees, and other insects and lifeforms. Resources like milk, honey, and meat are procured from these animals. Animals are reared, bred, and cared for to meet commercial ends.
A large number of farmers depend on animal husbandry to sustain their livelihood. Animal husbandry is of two types:
- Inbreeding
- Outbreeding
Inbreeding
Here, male and female members of the same species are kept for up to five generations. In this type of animal husbandry, the best females and males are selected for mating so that the best version of the same breed can be reproduced, often resulting in the deterioration of uneven genes. There are very few chances of bad results in animal husbandry. It is based on homozygosity, which Mendel introduced in his experiment.
Outbreeding
In this type of animal husbandry, reproduction is done with breeds that are not interrelated. It is of three kinds:
- Out-crossing: Mating is done between similar breeds though the ancestors of these breeds are different.
- Cross-breeding: The best sexes of the different breeds are fused to originate newer species.
- Interspecific breeding: The two sexes are mated in different but slightly related breeds. In this process, the offspring contains the characteristics of both parents. This is why it is the most used commercial method.
Fisheries
This field of agriculture comes under the blue revolution. In this form of agriculture, the fishes are kept on larger scales—the owners rear and care for these fishes.Fishes & other aquatic animals are reared and caught for food which is rich in protein vit A & D. Pisciculture is rearing, catching & management of fishes. Culture fishery is the raising of fishes in tanks & ponds. Capture fishery is management of catching of fish without actually raising them. The per capita consumption of fish in India is estimated at 1.52 kg/ yr. India is at present the 6th foremost seafood producing nations in the world. Blue Revolution is an effort to increase fish yield in India.
Bee-keeping (Apiculture)
Honey bees are kept on a larger scale for extracting honey from them. It is a global phenomenon. The scientific method of care & management of honey bees is called apiculture Although bees are very active throughout the year but in winter they become sluggish & are very active in spring. They show polymorphism & good division of work.The diameter of a normal bee hive is about 30-90 cm. In it the number of bees is about 50 -60 thousand. Bees are pollinators for sunflower, Brassica, apple & pear.
How can food production be improved?
Here are some ways catalogued for improving the production of food.
Biofortification
Biofortification is the scientific method of breeding between the best quality of crops. By performing this, the quality of crops is increased significantly. The characteristics of both crops descend into one crop, making it more productive and successful.
Single-cell protein (SCP)
It Is one of the systematic approaches to fulfil the rising demand for proteins. For example, mushrooms are reared for fulfilling the need for proteins in the increasing population.
Tissue Culture
Tissue Culture is the method of growing whole plants from a part of another plant. The ability of the parent plant to be generated into the whole brew plant by the part is called Totipotency. The process of performing this practice on a large scale is called Micropropagation. Although, the plant which is developed from tissue culture is called Somaclones.
Somatic hybridisation
In this scientific process, the cells of two different plants are mated with the protoplast of any other plant. All these used plants have highly desirable characteristics. The plants developed from Somatic hybridisation methods are called somatic hybrids, with Pomato being one of the most famous examples.
Conclusion
Food is the most vital source of nutrition for human beings. The need for food can never be declined and will increase gradually with the increase in the population. Even in the current scenario, the increment rate in the population is meagre compared to the rate of food production. The biggest problem of inadequate production of food is a deficiency of land. The development of industries and buildings leads to deforestation and a decrease in the number of fields. However, various scientific methods like somatic hybridisation and tissue culture have been developed to fulfil future food requirements.