Strategies for Enhancement in Food Production:

• Important Points
• Summary
• Revision
• Highlights

Inbreeding

Outbreeding

Apiculture

Fisheries

Plant Breeding

Hybrid Crops

Disease Resistance

Pest Resistance

Biofortification

Single Cell Protein

Tissue Culture

Somatic Hybridisation

Strategies for Enhancement in Food Production

Food is an essential part of the development and survival of all organisms. In order to meet the demands of a growing population, it is necessary to increase food production. Plant breeding, animal husbandry, and modern technologies such as tissue culture, genetic engineering, and embryo transfer have drastically increased yields.

Animal Husbandry

Raising and breeding livestock such as buffaloes, cattle, sheep, and cows, as well as poultry farming and fisheries, is a common practice.

Managers of dairy and poultry farms must choose breeds with high yield potential and disease resistance.

Types of Animal Breeding

A breed is a subset of a species of animals that share common physical characteristics and are believed to have descended from a common ancestor.

There are two types of breeding: Inbreeding and Outbreeding

Inbreeding

It refers to breeding between male and female and of the same breed for 4 to 6 generations. For this purpose superior males and superior females are selected and mated.

Inbreeding encourages homozygosity and is necessary for creating pure lines or true breeding species, as seen in Mendel’s experiment.

Inbreeding encourages the accumulation of desirable genes and eliminates undesirable genes.

The negative effects of inbreeding, known as inbreeding depression, can be seen in decreased productivity and fertility. To counteract this, mating with unrelated, superior animals is recommended.

Outcrossing

It refers to mating unrelated animals. This can be of three types:

• Intergeneric Hybridization
• Interfamily Hybridization
• Interspecific Hybridization

1. Out-crossing: It is mating of two different breeds, which do not have a common ancestor for few generations. This helps in avoiding inbreeding depression.

2. Cross-breeding: By combining the superior traits of two breeds, cross-breeding can be beneficial. This is achieved by mating superior males of one breed with superior females of another breed.

Hisardale: A new breed of sheep has been developed in Punjab through the cross-breeding of Marino rams (males) and Bikaneri ewes (females).

1. Interspecific Hybridization: Breeding between two different, yet related, species.

Mule: A hybrid of a male donkey and a female horse.

Controlled breeding experiments are used to address a variety of issues associated with traditional mating. In order to achieve this, Artificial Insemination (AI) is employed, which involves the use of semen that may be used immediately or frozen and stored for future use.

The chances of successful hybridisation are increased with Multiple Ovulation Embryo Transfer Technology (MOET).

In this method, the cow is given FSH (Follicle-stimulating hormone) similar to hormones to induce follicular maturation. This results in the production of 6-8 eggs compared to one in a normal cycle. Mating or artificial insemination is done with the semen of an elite bull and the fertilised eggs (at the stage of 8-32 cells) are transferred to surrogate mothers.

Apiculture (Bee-keeping)

The Apis indica is the most common species of honey bee, and its beehive is maintained for the production of honey, a nutrient-rich compound. Additionally, beeswax is used in various industries to make cosmetics, polishes, and more.

MCQs on Apiculture - Check it out!

Fisheries

The Blue Revolution is related to an increase in the production of fishes and other aquatic animals.

Aquaculture is the practice of breeding and rearing aquatic flora (fish, molluscs, crustaceans) and fauna (aquatic plants and algae) for commercial purposes. This can take the form of extensive aquaculture, which is done in oceans, rivers or lakes, or intensive aquaculture, which is done in ponds and tanks.

Pisciculture involves raising fish in a controlled environment in order to produce edible fish and fish products. In polyculture, multiple species of fish are raised together, while in monoculture, different species are raised separately.

Plant Breeding

Plant breeding is the manipulation of plants to achieve desired traits, such as improved quality, increased yield, and disease resistance.

The Green Revolution refers to the utilization of modern methods and technologies such as the use of fertilizers, pesticides, high yielding seeds, and irrigation facilities to increase food production to meet the population requirement. This movement was founded by M. S. Swaminathan in India.

High yield varieties of wheat and rice have greatly contributed to the increase in food grain production.

Plant breeding is done to increase yield, enhance quality, increase tolerance to environmental stress, and develop resistance to various pathogens and pests.

The Steps to Yield a New Genetic Variety of Plant Through Plant Breeding Programmes Worldwide:

1. Identify desirable traits

2. Select plants with desired traits

3. Crossbreed plants with desired traits

4. Select offspring with desired traits

5. Evaluate and test the new variety

6. Release the new variety to the public

7. Germplasm Collection - It is the collection of all the variety of a given crop. All the different alleles for all the genes of a plant are collected. This is known as a collection of variability.

8. Evaluation and Selection of Parents: The germplasm is evaluated to identify those individuals that possess the desired trait.

9. Cross Hybridization - Combining two desired characters, such as breeding a disease-resistant plant with a plant high in protein content.

10. Selection and Testing of Superior Recombinants - Hybrids with desired characters are selected and then self-pollinated over multiple generations in order to achieve homozygosity. This ensures that the characters will not segregate in the next generation.

11. The Commercialisation of New Cultivars - To ensure the yield and other qualities such as disease resistance are of proper quality, the crop is grown in a research field under controlled conditions.

Testing in farmer’s fields around the country is conducted for three consecutive seasons, following an evaluation.

Some of the High-Yielding Varieties of Hybrid Indian Crops

Wheat: Norman E Borlaug developed semi-dwarf varieties of wheat in Mexico, leading to an increase in wheat production from 11 million to 75 million tonnes.

Sonalika and Kalyan Sona are high-yielding and disease-resistant wheat varieties that are cultivated in India.

Semi-dwarf Varieties of Rice: IR-8 (developed in the Philippines) and Taichung Native-1 (Taiwan) were the original sources for these varieties.

Jaya and Ratna are semi-dwarf rice varieties developed in India.

Sugar Cane: Cross-breeding of two different sugarcane species, Saccharum barberi (grown in North India) and sugar-rich Saccharum officinarum (grown in South India and having thick stems), was successful in producing a sugarcane variety that is high in yield, sugar content, and thick stem, and can be grown in North India as well.

Millets: Varieties of jowar, maize, and bajra that are high yielding and resistant to water stress have been developed in India.

Plant Breeding for Disease Resistance

Approximately 20-30% of crops are lost due to various diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and fungi.

Disease resistant varieties can be developed through a variety of methods, such as conventional hybridization and selection, mutation, genetic engineering, and selection among somaclonal variants. As an example, the Pusa Swarnim variety of Brassica is resistant to white rust diseases, which are caused by the oomycete Albugo candida or its close relatives.

Some of the examples of disease-resistant varieties developed by the conventional method of hybridisation and selection are:

Mutation Breeding: Artificial induction of mutation can cause a change in the gene sequence, leading to the emergence of desired traits that were not present before.

Examples: The new variety of Mung beans have been developed through mutation, which makes them resistant to powdery mildew disease and yellow mosaic virus.

It is essential to have both disease-resistance and high yields in crops. To achieve this, genes for disease-resistance are transferred to high yielding varieties through sexual hybridisation. An example of this is the Parbhani Kranti variety of bhindi, which was developed and is resistant to the yellow mosaic virus. This disease resistance was obtained from a wild species.

Plant Breeding for Pest Resistance

The destruction of crops on a large scale due to insects and pests has necessitated the development of pest-resistant varieties, similar to the process of developing disease-resistant varieties.

Some of the examples of pest-resistant varieties developed and being used commercially are:

Plant Breeding for Enhanced Food Quality

It is also essential for crops to have higher nutrient value in order to combat nutrient deficiency diseases, apart from disease resistance, pest resistance, and high yield.

We can improve public health by producing nutrient-rich crops, which will have healthier fat, higher protein, vitamins and minerals content.

Take this MCQ Test on Food Adulteration

Biofortification

Biofortification is the process of breeding nutrient-rich crops. These crops have an improved quality and content of protein, oil, vitamins, micronutrients and minerals. The Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi has released many varieties of vegetables with higher concentrations of vitamins and minerals.

Some examples of biofortified crops developed are:

• Golden Rice
• BioCassava Plus
• Vitamin A Maize
• High Iron Beans

| Crop | Nutrient |

| Hybrid Maize (developed in 2000) | Twice the Amino Acids Lysine and Tryptophan |

| Wheat (Atlas-66) | High Protein Content |

| Rice | Iron-rich (5 times more) |

| Carrots | Pumpkin | Spinach | Vitamin A enriched |

| Mustard, Bitter Gourd, Tomato, Bathua | Vitamin C Enriched |

| Spinach and Bathua | Iron and Calcium enriched |

| French beans | Broad beans | Lablab beans | Garden peas | Protein-enriched |

Single Cell Protein (SCP)

Single-cell protein is one of the sources of protein and can meet the nutritional requirements of the ever-increasing human and animal population.

Growing blue-green algae, such as Spirulina, on an industrial scale is one way to obtain SCP. These algae are a great source of nutrients and can be grown easily on wastewater from sewage, potato processing plants, animal manure and straw molasses.

The bacteria Methylophilus methylotrophus can produce 25 tonnes of protein due to its high growth rate and biomass production. Large scale production of edible mushrooms is a growing industry.

Tissue Culture

Tissue culture is the process of developing a whole plant from a part of the plant.

The ability of an explant (part of the plant) or a cell to regenerate the entire plant is referred to as totipotency.

Micropropagation is a method of producing thousands of plants using tissue culture, wherein the medium should be rich in nutrients, with a carbon source (such as sucrose), growth regulators (auxins and cytokinins), vitamins, inorganic salts, and amino acids.

Somaclones: Plants developed through tissue culture are known as somaclones and they are genetically identical to the parent plant.

Many food crops such as tomato, apple, and banana have been successfully produced on a commercial scale using tissue culture methods.

The tissue culture method is also useful in getting rid of disease infections. The apical and axillary meristem is free from a viral infection, which can be removed and grown in vitro to get a healthy plant. Meristems of banana, potato and sugarcane have been successfully cultured.

Somatic Hybridization

The process of creating somatic hybrids involves fusing the naked protoplasts (cells without a cell wall) of two different varieties of plants that possess desirable traits.

Pomato, developed using potato and tomato, did not contain the desirable combination of traits to be used commercially.