Better Farming Series 15 - Cereals (FAO - INADES, 1977, 51 p.): What are food crops?: Why we should produce and sell more cereals

Better Farming Series 15 - Cereals (FAO - INADES, 1977, 51 p.)

(introduction...)

Preface

What are food crops?

(introduction...)

What cereals are grown in Africa?

Why cereals are grown

Why we should produce and sell more cereals

Traditional cereal growing

Growing cereals in the modern way

Clearing land and grubbing out trees

Conserving and improving the soil

Applying manure and fertilizers

Preparing the soil

Selecting and preparing seeds

Sowing in rows

How to look after cereals

Harvesting

Selling part of the harvest

Sorghum and millet

(introduction...)

Sorghum

Millet

(introduction...)

How to grow sorghum and millet

(introduction...)

Growing sorghum in the dry season

Sorghum for animal feeding

Maize

(introduction...)

Traditional maize growing

How to increase maize yields

Other cereals

Fonio

Finger millet

Wheat

Why we should produce and sell more cereals

We must produce more food to feed more people.

There are more people in the world. Fewer children die. Men and women live longer.

· We must produce more food to sell to people who do not grow any.

Many people go to live in towns. These men and women do not farm the land; they buy their food. Even in villages there are men and women who have new jobs, such as teachers, officials, traders. They do not farm the land. So the farmers have to produce more millet, more maize, more rice, to sell to people in towns and villages who do not farm the land.

· Farmers should produce more cereals.

But near the villages there are often no new fields to cultivate.

In savanna country there is no time during the short rainy season to cultivate bigger fields.

So farmers must produce more from the same area.

That means they must increase the yield of their cereal crops.

But you cannot increase the yield much if you farm in the traditional way.