Grain crops are also called "food crops" or "cereal crops." In China, this is the collective term for cereal crops, tuber crops (including sweet potato, potato, etc.) and edible legume crops (including soybean, broad bean, pea, mung bean, adzuki bean, etc.). They are generally used as the staple food of humans. Nutritionally, cereal crops mainly provide starch, protein, vitamins, etc., legume crops mainly provide protein, fat, etc., and tuber crops mainly provide starch, vitamins, etc. These crops are also fine feed for livestock, are needed in huge quantities, and occupy a relatively large cultivated area and proportion.
Overview
Grain crops include wheat, rice, corn, oats, rye, barley, millet, sorghum and highland barley, etc., but three of these crops (wheat, rice and corn) account for more than half of the world's food. Grain crops are the main food source for humans.
Characteristics
Unlike vegetables and fruit trees, the seeds of grain crops contain less water. Therefore, they keep better in storage than vegetables or fruits. People began cultivating them long ago.
China was growing rice 7000 years ago. Corn began to be grown in the Americas about 7000 years ago. About 6000 years ago, people in the Middle East began to grow wheat (but that wheat was more primitive than modern wheat).
Did you know? Are grain crops actually grasses? If you go to a field and take the stalks of rice or wheat to observe, you will find that they are very similar to some grasses.
Why are they called grain crops? Because they provide food for humans. Scientifically, they are called cereal crops (classified under the grass family).
Grain crops are the collective term for cereal crops (including paddy rice, wheat, barley, oats, corn, millet, sorghum, etc.), tuber crops (including sweet potato, potato, cassava, etc.) and legume crops (including soybean, broad bean, pea, mung bean, adzuki bean, etc.). They can also be called food crops. Their products contain starch, protein, fat and vitamins, etc. Cultivating grain crops not only provides humans with food and certain non-staple foods to maintain life needs, but also provides raw materials for the food industry and provides fine feed and most coarse feed for animal husbandry, so grain production is the foundation of agriculture in most countries. Usually, grain crops are also the leading crops among crops; the world's grain crop planting area accounts for about 85% of the total sown area of crops, of which wheat, paddy rice and corn account for about 80% of the world's total grain output. China is the world's largest grain-producing country; grain crops account for 76.8% of the total sown area of crops (1987), and its total grain output and the output of paddy rice, wheat, millet and sweet potato all rank among the top in the world.