(introduction...)

To live, man must eat.

· At one time men gathered and picked the fruits, leaves, and seeds of trees and plants. To get meat and fish they hunted and fished.

· But nowadays hunting, fishing and food gathering are no longer enough to feed all the people. Crops have to be grown to provide food. These crops are called food crops.

· Nowadays the inhabitants of African villages grow many food crops.

They grow mainly:

· cereals such as sorghum, millet, rice, maize;
· tubers such as yams, sweet potatoes, cocoyams, tania, potatoes;
· root crops such as cassava;
· legumes such as cow peas, Bambarra groundnuts, groundnuts and soybeans;
· bananas and plantains.

In this book/et we study only cereals.

We shall deal with other food crops in other booklets.