Board exam focus — Improvement in Food Resources (CBSE & HBSE)

CBSE emphasises crop variety improvement, nutrient management, cropping patterns and integrated practices in animal husbandry; HBSE focuses on definitions and short-answer descriptions of manure vs fertilisers, irrigation, crop protection and types of animal farming.

Improvement in Crop Yields

Why Improve Food Resources?

India's growing population needs more food. Since cultivable land is limited, we must increase yield per unit area without harming the environment. This is achieved by improving crop production at three stages: crop variety improvement, crop production management, and crop protection management.

Types of Nutrients and Crop Seasons

Plants need 16 nutrients: from air & water they get carbon, hydrogen, oxygen; from soil they get 6 macronutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulphur) and 7 micronutrients (iron, manganese, boron, zinc, copper, molybdenum, chlorine).

Crop Variety Improvement

Desirable varieties are produced by hybridisation (crossing genetically dissimilar plants) or by introducing a gene to get genetically modified crops. Useful traits selected for include:

• Higher yield and improved quality.
• Biotic and abiotic resistance (against diseases, insects, drought, salinity, heat).
• Wider adaptability and changes in maturity duration (shorter duration is economical).
• Desirable agronomic characters (e.g., tallness in fodder crops, dwarfness in cereals).

Crop Production and Protection Management

Nutrient Management: Manure vs Fertilisers

Soil is enriched by supplying nutrients through manure and fertilisers.

Types of manure: compost (from farm/animal waste in pits — composting), vermicompost (using earthworms), and green manure (growing plants like sun hemp and ploughing them into the soil).

Tip: Manure supports organic farming and long-term soil health; fertilisers give quick high yields but overuse causes water pollution and loss of fertility.

Irrigation

Supplying water to crops at proper intervals is irrigation. Sources/systems include wells (dug wells, tube wells), canals, river lift systems, and tanks. Rainwater harvesting and watershed management help conserve water.

Cropping Patterns

1. Mixed cropping — growing two or more crops simultaneously on the same field (e.g., wheat + gram). Reduces risk of total crop failure.
2. Inter-cropping — growing two or more crops in a definite row pattern (e.g., few rows of one crop alternating with another). Increases yield and prevents pest spread.
3. Crop rotation — growing different crops one after another on the same field in a planned sequence; legumes restore soil nitrogen.

Crop Protection Management

Field crops and stored grains are protected from weeds, insect pests and diseases.

• Weeds (e.g., Xanthium, Parthenium) are unwanted plants removed by tilling, weedicides, manual removal.
• Pests/diseases controlled by pesticides, resistant varieties, summer ploughing and proper storage.
• Storage losses are caused by biotic factors (insects, rodents, fungi, mites, bacteria) and abiotic factors (inappropriate moisture and temperature). Prevented by cleaning, drying, fumigation.

Animal Husbandry

What is Animal Husbandry?

Animal husbandry is the scientific management of animal livestock, including feeding, breeding, shelter and disease control. It covers cattle, poultry, fish and bee farming.

Cattle Farming

Cattle husbandry is done for milk (milch/dairy animals) and for draught labour (draught animals) for farm work like tilling and carting.

• Milch breeds: produce more milk during lactation period (e.g., Red Sindhi, Sahiwal). Cross-breeding of Indian breeds (e.g., Sahiwal) with foreign breeds (e.g., Jersey, Brown Swiss) gives high-yield, disease-resistant cattle.
• Care: proper shelter (clean, ventilated), balanced feed of roughage (fibre) and concentrates (proteins/nutrients), and protection from diseases caused by bacteria, virus, parasites (external — ticks; internal — worms, flukes). Vaccination is given against many diseases.

Poultry Farming

Poultry farming is done to raise domestic fowl for egg production (layers) and chicken meat (broilers). Cross-breeding of Indian (Aseel) and foreign (Leghorn) breeds gives improved varieties with traits like dwarf size, tolerance to high temperature and low maintenance.

Fish Production (Pisciculture)

Fish is a source of cheap animal protein. Two ways to obtain fish:

1. Capture fishing — from natural resources (sea or fresh water).
2. Culture fishery (aquaculture) — farming fish in ponds. Marine fish (e.g., pomfret, mackerel, tuna) and freshwater fish are reared. Composite fish culture rears 5–6 species together in one pond so that all feeding zones (surface, middle, bottom feeders) are used without competition.

Bee-keeping (Apiculture)

Apiculture is the keeping of honeybees for honey and wax on a large scale. The Indian variety _Apis cerana indica_ and the Italian bee _Apis mellifera_ (high honey yield) are used. The quality of honey depends on the pasturage (flowers available to bees) and its kind.

CBSE/HBSE Trap: Remember the technical terms — pisciculture (fish), apiculture (bees), and composite fish culture (multiple species, multiple feeding zones).

Frequently asked questions

Are these Improvement in Food Resources notes free?

Yes — the Improvement in Food Resources notes for Science (Class 9) on Siksha Sarovar are completely free to read, with no account required.

Do these notes follow CBSE and HBSE?

Yes. The Improvement in Food Resources notes are NCERT-aligned and include guidance for both CBSE and Haryana Board (HBSE), with important questions and MCQs for revision.

What does the Improvement in Food Resources chapter cover?

Concept explanations, key formulas and definitions, fully solved examples and board-pattern practice questions for Improvement in Food Resources.