Overview of Enhancement of Food Production

The improvement or purposeful manipulation of heredity of crop plants for the production of new and superior varieties is called plant breeding.

The in-vitro technique of producing a large number of plants from a small piece of plant tissue under sterile conditions is called micropropagation.

The production of genetically identical plants from a single parent plant is called clonal propagation.

• Animal Breeding
  Animal breeding is the scientific practice aimed at improving desirable traits and increasing the yield of animals and their products like milk, meat, and eggs.
• Breed
  A breed is a group of animals with common ancestry and similar characters such as size, appearance, and productivity.
• Inbreeding
  Inbreeding is the mating of closely related individuals for 4–6 generations, which increases homozygosity and helps in producing pure lines, but may reduce fertility.
• Outbreeding
  Outbreeding involves breeding of unrelated animals, including crossbreeding and interspecific hybridization, to remove inbreeding depression and improve performance.
• Modern Breeding Techniques
  Techniques like artificial insemination and MOET (Multiple Ovulation Embryo Transfer) are used to rapidly increase herd size and obtain high-yielding superior animals.

1. Poultry Farming
   Poultry farming involves the rearing of domesticated birds such as chicken, ducks, turkey, and fowls for the production of eggs and meat.
2. Requirements of Poultry Management
   Proper breed selection, housing, feed, water, hygiene, and disease control are essential for efficient poultry farm management.
3. Types of Poultry Breeds and Uses
   Leghorn is the best egg-laying (layer) breed, while Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island Red, Aseel, Brahma, and Kadaknath are preferred as broilers (meat birds).
4. Poultry Diseases
   Common poultry diseases include viral (Ranikhet, bird flu), bacterial (cholera, typhoid), fungal (aspergillosis), parasitic, and protozoan (coccidiosis) diseases.

The branch of applied zoology that deals with the rearing of silkworms for the production of silk is called sericulture.

The practice of rearing lac insects for the commercial production of lac is called lac culture.

• Sewage is liquid waste containing human excreta, organic matter, chemicals, and pathogenic microorganisms.
• Microorganisms in Sewage:
  Sewage contains bacteria, viruses, protozoa, fungi, algae, and nematodes, including disease-causing microbes.
• Preliminary Treatment:
  Large floating and heavy solid particles are removed by screening and grit chambers.
• Primary Treatment:
  Suspended solids settle in sedimentation tanks forming primary sludge, reducing organic matter and microbes.
• Secondary Treatment:
  Aerobic bacteria form flocs that degrade organic matter and significantly reduce BOD.
• Tertiary Treatment:
  Anaerobic digestion produces biogas, and treated effluent is disinfected and released or reused.