A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption.[1] A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legumes.
Grains and cereal are synonymous with caryopses, the fruits of the grass family. In agronomy and commerce, seeds or fruits from other plant families are called grains if they resemble caryopses. For example, amaranth is sold as "grain amaranth", and amaranth products may be described as "whole grains". The pre-Hispanic civilizations of the Andes had grain-based food systems, but at higher elevations none of the grains was a cereal. All three grains native to the Andes (kaniwa, kiwicha, and quinoa) are broad-leafed plants rather than grasses such as corn, rice, and wheat.[2]
Classification
Illustration of a wheat kernel, its composition and the nutritional values of its parts.
A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize. Edible grains from other plant families, such as buckwheat and quinoa are pseudocereals. Most cereals are annuals, producing one crop from each planting, though rice is sometimes grown as a perennial. Winter varieties are hardy enough to be planted in the autumn, becoming dormant in the winter, and harvested in spring or early summer; spring varieties are planted in spring and harvested in late summer. The term cereal is derived from the name of the Roman goddess of grain crops and fertility, Ceres.
Cereals were domesticated in the Neolithic, some 8,000 years ago. Wheat and barley were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent; rice was domesticated in East Asia, and sorghum and millet were domesticated in West Africa. In the 20th century, cereal productivity was greatly increased by the Green Revolution. This increase in production has accompanied a growing international trade, with some countries producing large portions of the cereal supply for other countries.
Pulses or grain legumes, members of the pea family, have a higher protein content than most other plant foods, at around 20%, while soybeans have as much as 35%. As is the case with all other whole plant foods, pulses also contain carbohydrates and fat. Common pulses include:
Oilseed grains are grown primarily for the extraction of their edible oil. Vegetable oils provide dietary energy and some essential fatty acids.[3] They are also used as fuel and lubricants.[4]
Ancient grains is a marketing term used to describe a category of grains and pseudocereals that are purported to have been minimally changed by selective breeding over recent millennia, as opposed to more widespread cereals such as corn, rice and modern varieties of wheat, which are the product of thousands of years of selective breeding. Ancient grains are often marketed as being more nutritious than modern grains, though their health benefits over modern varieties have been disputed by some nutritionists.[5][6]
Because grains are small, hard and dry, they can be stored, measured, and transported more readily than can other kinds of food crops such as fresh fruits, roots and tubers. The development of grain agriculture allowed excess food to be produced and stored easily which could have led to the creation of the first temporary settlements and the division of society into classes.[12]
This assumption that grain agriculture led to early settlements and social stratification has been challenged by James Scott in his book Against the Grain.[13] He argues that the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to settled agrarian communities was not a voluntary choice driven by the benefits of increased food production due to the long storage potential of grains, but rather that the shift towards settlements was a coerced transformation imposed by dominant members of a society seeking to expand control over labor and resources.
Trade
The grain trade refers to the local and international trade in cereals such as wheat, barley, maize, and rice, and other food grains. Grain is an important trade item because it is easily stored and transported with limited spoilage, unlike other agricultural products. Healthy grain supply and trade is important to many societies, providing a caloric base for most food systems as well as important role in animal feed for animal agriculture.
The grain trade is as old as agricultural settlement, identified in many of the early cultures that adopted sedentary farming. Major societal changes have been directly connected to the grain trade, such as the fall of the Roman Empire. From the early modern period onward, grain trade has been an important part of colonial expansion and international power dynamics. The geopolitical dominance of countries like Australia, the United States, Canada and the Soviet Union during the 20th century was connected with their status as grain surplus countries.
^Charlie Fox, Freekeh Recipes: A Guide to Cooking with this Ancient Grain, 2020
^Wessel, T. (1984). "The Agricultural Foundations of Civilization". Journal of Agriculture and Human Values. 1 (2): 9–12.
^Scott, James (2017). Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. Yale University Press. ISBN9780300240214.
^Pei, Qing; Zhang, David Dian; Xu, Jingjing (August 2014). "Price Responses of Grain Market under Climate Change in Pre-industrial Western Europe by ARX Modelling". Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Simulation and Modeling Methodologies, Technologies and Applications. pp. 811–817. doi:10.5220/0005025208110817. ISBN978-989-758-038-3. S2CID8045747. ((cite book)): |journal= ignored (help)
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