Major Food and Oil Crops Overview

Study Notes

Major Food Crops

Globally, wheat, rice, and maize are the most important food crops by production volume.
Sorghum, barley, and oats are also important crops.
In Ethiopia, teff, wheat, maize, sorghum, and barley are the top five crops by cultivated area.
Crops are categorized as monocots or dicots.
Monocot crops (e.g., grasses) store food in their endosperm, primarily starch.
Dicot crops (e.g., legumes, oilseeds) store food in cotyledons, rich in protein, oil, and carbohydrates.
Important legume/oilseed grains include soybeans, peanuts, beans, and peas.

Major Oil Crops

Oil crops are grown to extract oil from their seeds.
Major oilseeds include olives, linseed, sesame, sunflower, soybeans, coconuts, palm, maize, and peanuts.
Plant oils are used for food and industrial purposes.
Oils provide essential fatty acids (linoleic and alpha-linolenic), vitamins (A, K, D, E), and are composed of triglycerides (glycerine + fatty acids).

Major Fiber Crops

Plant fibers are used for clothing and textiles.
Cotton lint is the most important fiber for cloth-making.
Fibers come from cotton, plant stems (flax, jute, hemp, ramie, kenaf, nettle, bamboo), and other plant parts.
Cotton fibers make sewing thread and cloth.
Plant bark fibers create packaging materials and ropes (e.g., jute).

Major Forage Crops

Forage crops are used as livestock feed.
Major forage crops include alfalfa, sesbania, leucaena, clovers, timothy, elephant grass, desho grass, Rhodes grass, panicum grass, Sudan grass, and Johnson grass.
Early-stage cereal grains can also be livestock feed.
Livestock feed comes primarily from plant vegetative parts (roots, shoots, buds, leaves).
Forage crops offer protein, fiber, and various nutrients (vitamins A, E, sodium, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium).

Classification of C3 and C4 Plants

Plants use photosynthesis to convert atmospheric CO2 into carbohydrates.
Crops are classified as C3 or C4 based on their photosynthetic pathway.
C3 plants' first stable carbon compound has 3 carbons, and photosynthesis rate increases with elevated CO2 levels.
C4 plants have a mechanism to accumulate CO2 inside their chloroplasts, so their photosynthesis rate is independent of CO2 levels.
C4 plants are more efficient in low CO2 and water use, needing less nitrogen than C3 plants.
C4 plants generally have higher photosynthetic rates at a given temperature, compared to C3 plants.
Examples of C3 crops: wheat, barley, teff, soybean, groundnut, sweet potato.
Examples of C4 crops: sorghum, maize, sugarcane, most weeds.

Description

This quiz covers the major food crops, oil crops, and fiber crops globally and in Ethiopia. Learn about the characteristics of monocots and dicots, as well as the importance of various oilseeds and fiber crops. Test your knowledge on agricultural crops and their uses.