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Grain
Edible dry seed

A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit called a caryopsis, sometimes with an attached hull, harvested for human or animal consumption. The main commercial grain crops include cereals and legumes. Dry grains are more durable than other staple foods like plantains, breadfruit, and tubers, enabling mechanical harvesting, long-term storage in silos, and processing into flour or oil. This makes them central to the grain market within global agriculture, including crops such as maize, rice, soybeans, and wheat.

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Cereal and non-cereal grains

In the grass family, a grain (narrowly defined) is a caryopsis,2 a fruit with its wall fused on to the single seed inside, belonging to a cereal such as wheat, maize, or rice. More broadly, in agronomy and commerce, seeds or fruits from other plant families are called grains if they resemble cereal 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 belonged the cereal family. All three grains native to the Andes (kaniwa, kiwicha, and quinoa) are broad-leaved plants rather than grasses.3

Cereal grains

Main article: Cereal

Many different species of cereal are cultivated for their grains.4

Warm-season cereals

Cool-season cereals

Pseudocereal grains

Main article: Pseudocereal

See also: Ancient grains

Starchy grains from broadleaf (dicot) plant families are cultivated as nutritious alternatives to cereals. The three major pseudocereal grains are:5

Pulses or grain legumes

Pulses or grain legumes,6 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

Oilseed grains7 are grown primarily for the extraction of their edible oil. Vegetable oils provide dietary energy and some essential fatty acids.8 They are also used as fuel and lubricants.9

Mustard family

Aster family

Other families

Historical importance

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.10 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.11

This assumption that grain agriculture led to early settlements and social stratification has been challenged by James Scott in his book Against the Grain.12 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

This section is an excerpt from Grain trade.[edit]

The grain trade refers to the local and international trade in cereals such as wheat, barley, maize, 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 began as early 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 foreign policy. 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.

More recently, international commodity markets have been an important part of the dynamics of food systems and grain pricing. Speculation, as well as other compounding production and supply factors leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, created rapid inflation of grain prices during the 2007–2008 world food price crisis. More recently, the dominance of Ukraine and Russia in grain markets such as wheat meant that the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 caused increased fears of a global food crises in 2022. Changes to agriculture caused by climate change are expected to have cascading effects on global grain markets.13141516

Occupational safety and health

Those who handle grain at grain facilities may encounter numerous occupational hazards and exposures. Risks include grain entrapment, where workers are submerged in the grain and unable to extricate themselves;17 explosions caused by fine particles of grain dust,18 and falls.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Grain. Look up grain in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. English Wikisource has original text related to this article: Grain

References

  1. Babcock, P. G., ed. 1976. Webster's Third New Dictionary. Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Co. ↩

  2. Simpson, Michael G. (2019-11-10). Plant Systematics. Academic Press. p. 262. ISBN 978-0-12-812629-5. 978-0-12-812629-5 ↩

  3. Lost Crops of the Incas: Little-Known Plants of the Andes with Promise for Worldwide Cultivation. Office of International Affairs, National Academies of the. Washington D.C.: National Academies Press. 1989. p. 124. doi:10.17226/1398. ISBN 978-0-309-04264-2. 978-0-309-04264-2 ↩

  4. McKevith, Brigid (2004). "Nutritional aspects of cereals". Nutrition Bulletin. 29 (2): 111–142. doi:10.1111/j.1467-3010.2004.00418.x. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=d0c5cc48e8512127d6cff1b46bade4d0f823dc68 ↩

  5. Thakur, Priyanka; Kumar, Krishan (2019). "Nutritional importance and processing aspects of pseudo-cereals". Journal of Agricultural Engineering and Food Technology. 6 (2): 155–160. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332383981 ↩

  6. Turner, Neil C.; Wright, Graeme C.; Siddique, K.H.M. (2001). "Adaptation of grain legumes (pulses) to water-limited environments". Advances in Agronomy. Vol. 71. Elsevier. pp. 193–231. doi:10.1016/s0065-2113(01)71015-2. ISBN 978-0-12-000770-7. 978-0-12-000770-7 ↩

  7. Shim, Youn Young; et al. (2017). "Food and fuel from Canadian oilseed grains: Biorefinery production may optimize both resources". European Journal of Lipid Science and Technology. 119 (9). article 1600358. doi:10.1002/ejlt.201600358. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩

  8. Lean, M.E.J. (2006). Fox and Cameron's Food Science, Nutrition & Health, 7th Edition. CRC Press. p. 49. ISBN 978-1-4441-1337-2. 978-1-4441-1337-2 ↩

  9. Salunkhe, D. K. (1992-02-29). World Oilseeds. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-0442001124. 978-0442001124 ↩

  10. "Lost Crops of the Incas: Little-Known Plants of the Andes with Promise for Worldwide Cultivation". Office of International Affairs, National Academies: 24. 1989. https://www.1066.co.nz/Mosaic%20DVD/stamford%20bridge/Food%20grain.htm ↩

  11. Wessel, T. (1984). "The Agricultural Foundations of Civilization". Journal of Agriculture and Human Values. 1 (2): 9–12. doi:10.1007/BF01530609. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩

  12. Scott, James (2017). Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300240214. 9780300240214 ↩

  13. 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. ISBN 978-989-758-038-3. S2CID 8045747. 978-989-758-038-3 ↩

  14. "Climate Change Is Likely to Devastate the Global Food Supply". Time. Retrieved 2022-04-02. https://time.com/5663621/climate-change-food-supply/ ↩

  15. "CLIMATE CHANGE LINKED TO GLOBAL RISE IN FOOD PRICES – Climate Change". Archived from the original on 18 October 2022. Retrieved 2022-04-02. https://web.archive.org/web/20221018125750/https://climatechange.medill.northwestern.edu/2015/02/10/climate-change-linked-to-global-rise-in-food-prices/ ↩

  16. Lustgarten, Abrahm (2020-12-16). "How Russia Wins the Climate Crisis". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-04-02. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/16/magazine/russia-climate-migration-crisis.html ↩

  17. "Frequently Asked Questions About Flowing Grain Entrapment, Grain Rescue and Strategies, and Grain Entrapment Prevention Measures" (PDF). Agricultural Safety and Health Program, Purdue University. April 2011. p. 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 17, 2013. Retrieved November 4, 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20131217062124/http://extension.entm.purdue.edu/grainlab/content/pdf/QuestionFlowingGrainEntrap.pdf ↩

  18. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. "Combustible Dust in Industry: Preventing and Mitigating the Effects of Fire and Explosions". Safety and Health Information Bulletin. United States Department of Labor. Retrieved 29 October 2013. /wiki/Occupational_Safety_and_Health_Administration ↩