Crop


A crop is a plant or animal product that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. Crop may refer either to the harvested parts or to the harvest in a more refined state. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or aquaculture. A crop may include macroscopic fungus, or alga.
Most crops are harvested as food for humans or fodder for livestock. Some crops are gathered from the wild.
Important non-food crops include horticulture, floriculture and industrial crops. Horticulture crops include plants used for other crops. Floriculture crops include bedding plants, houseplants, flowering garden and pot plants, cut cultivated greens, and cut flowers. Industrial crops are produced for clothing, biofuel, or medicine.

Important food crops

The importance of a crop varies greatly by region. Globally, the following crops contribute most to human food supply : rice, wheat, sugarcane and other sugar crops, maize , soybean oil, other vegetables, potatoes, palm oil, cassava, legume pulses, sunflowerseed oil, rape and mustard oil, other fruits,, sorghum, millet, groundnuts, beans, sweet potatoes, bananas, various nuts, soybeans, cottonseed oil, groundnut oil, yams. Note that many of the globally apparently minor crops are regionally very important. For example, in Africa, roots & tubers dominate with 421 kcal/person/day, and sorghum and millet contribute 135 kcal and 90 kcal, respectively.
In terms of produced weight, the following crops are the most important ones :
Crop20002013
Sugarcane1,256,3801,877,110
Maize592,4791,016,740
Rice599,355745,710
Wheat585,691713,183
Potato327,600368,096