Class 12 Biology Chapter 9
Chapter 9

Strategies for Enhancement 

in 

 Food Production 



Q1. Explain in brief the role of animal husbandry in human welfare? 

Ans:  Animal husbandry is the practice of breeding and livestock rearing in agriculture. Animal husbandry deals with the care and breeding of livestock such as buffaloes, cows, pigs, cattle, etc., that are help humans. The animals like bees, silkworm, prawns, fishes, sheep and camels are used by humans to get milk, eggs, wool, honey, meat etc. the various newer technologies have to be applied to improve the quality and quantity.


Q2. If your family owned a diary farm, what measures would you undertake to improve the quality and quantity of milk production.

Answer: The measures that would be undertake to improve the quality and quantity of milk production-
        • Selection of good breed, resistance to diseases
        • Maintainenece of cattle by providing them good housed water and should be maintained disease free.
        • While milking, storage, transport of milk and its product cleanliness and hygiene should be maintained.
        • Regular inspections with proper record should be maintained.



Q3. What is meant by term breed? What are the objectives of animal breeding?

Answer:  Breed is a group of animals linked by descent and similar in most features like general appearance, features, size, configuration etc.

     The objectives of animal breeding-
        • To increase the yield of animals.
        • To improve the desirable qualities of the produce.
        • To produce disease- resistant animals.



Q4. Name the methods employed in animal breeding. According to you which one of the methods is best? Why?

Answer: The methods employed in animal breeding are-

    Natural breeding method
        • Inbreeding
        • Out-breeding
        • Out-crossing
        • Cross-breeding
        • Interspecific hybridization


    Artificial method of breeding
        • Artificial insemination
        • Multiple ovulation embryo transfer technology (MOET)

The best method of animal breeding is the artificial method of breeding which includes artificial insemination and MOET. It helps to produce desired qualities hybrids. It helps to overcome several problems of normal mating.



Q5. What is apiculture? How is it important in our lives?

Answer: Apiculture is the maintainenece of hives of honeybees for the production of honey.
The importance of apiculture in our lives-
        • Honey is high nutritive food which is used by indigenous systems of medicine. 
        • Honeybee produces beeswax which is used by industry such as cosmetics preparation, and products polishing.
        • The increased demand of honey helps to become an established income generating industry, either practiced on a small or on a large scale.



Q6. Discuss the role of fishery in enhancement of food production.

Answer: Fishery is an industry devoted to the catching, processing or selling of fish, shellfish or other aquatic animals. A large number of our population is dependent on fish, fish products and other aquatic animals such as prawn, crab, lobster, edible oyster, etc., for food. Fisheries have an important place in Indian economy. It provides income and employment to millions of fishermen and farmers, particularly in the coastal states. For many, it is the only source of their livelihood. In order,
to meet the increasing demands on fisheries, different techniques have been employed to increase production.



Q7. Briefly describe various steps involved in plant breeding.

Answer: The various steps involved in plant breeding are-

        • Collection of genetic variability: 
Genetic variability is available from wild relatives of the crop are collected and preserved
for effective exploitation of natural genes available in the populations. The entire collection having all the diverse alleles for all genes in a given crop is called germplasm
collection.

        • Evaluation and selection of parents:
The germplasm is evaluated so as to identify plants with desirable combination of characters. The selected plants are multiplied and used in the process of hybridisation. Purelines are created wherever desirable and possible.

        • Cross hybridization among the selected parents:
The desired characters have very often to be combined from two different plants (parents), for example high protein quality of one parent may need to be combined with disease resistance from another parent. This is possible by cross hybridising the two parents to produce hybrids that genetically combine the desired characters in one plant. This is a very time-consuming and tedious process since the pollen grains from the desirable plant chosen as male parent have to be collected and placed on the stigma of the flowers selected as female parent. Also, it is not necessary that the hybrids do combine the desirable characters; usually only one in few hundred to a thousand crosses shows the desirable combination.

        • Selection and testing of superior recombinants: 
This step consists of selecting, among the progeny of the hybrids, those plants that have the desired character combination. The selection process is crucial to the success of the breeding objective and requires careful scientific evaluation of the progeny. This step yields plants that are superior to both of the parents. These are self-pollinated for various generations till they reach a state of uniformity (homozygosity), so that the characters will not separate in the progeny.

        • Testing, release and commercialisation of new cultivars: 
The newly selected lines are evaluated for their yield and other agronomic traits of quality, disease resistance, etc. This evaluation is done by growing these in the research fields and recording their performance under ideal fertiliser application, irrigation, and other crop management practices. The evaluation in research fields is followed by testing the materials in farmers’ fields, for at least three growing seasons at several locations in the country, representing all the agro climatic zones where the crop is usually grown. The material is evaluated in comparison to the best available local crop cultivar – a check or reference cultivar.



Q8. Explain what is meant by biofortification.

Answer: Biofortification is the process of breeding crops with higher levels of vitamins and
minerals, or higher protein and healthier fats . It is used to improve public health.
Breeding for improved nutritional quality is undertaken with the purposes of improving –
(i) Protein content and quality;
(ii) Oil content and quality;
(iii) Vitamin content; and
(iv) Micronutrient and mineral content.


Q9. Which part of the plant is best suited for making virus-free plants and why?

Answer: Apical and axillary meristem are the parts of plants which is best suited for making virus-free plants because this regions is not infected by disease in a diseased free plants.



Q10. What is the major advantage of producing plants by micropropagation?

Answer: The major advantage of producing plants by micropropagation are-
        • Large number of plants can be propagated in a short duration.
        • The plants produced will be genetically identical to the original plant
        • The recovery of healthy  plants from diseased plants


Q11. Find out what the various components of the medium used for propagation of explants in vitro are?

Answer: The various components of the medium used for propagation of explants in vitro are sucrose, inorganic salts, amino acids, agar-agar, vitamins and certain growth hormones like auxin and gibberellins.


Q12. Name any five hybrid varieties of crop plants which have been developed in in India.

Answer: In here you have to find out five hybrid varieties of crop plants.
Ex:
Crop plant Hybrid variety
Wheat Sonalika and kalian sona
Mustard Pusa swarnim









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