CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 Brief Description of Various Types of Cereals
2.1 Maize
2.2 Sorghum and Millett
2.3 Cotton Seed Meal
2.4 Rice
2.5 Wheat
2.6 Nutritive Values of Various Types of Cereals
2.7 The Processing of Cereals and Its Uses to Mankind
2.8 Preservation of cereals
2.9 Problems Militating Cereals Production in Nigeria
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 Conclusion
REFERENCES
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Cereals still remain the most consumed staple food in homes of most African countries. African production of majorly consumed cereals such as maize, rice and sorghum, is not proportional to the demands, hence they have to be imported from other continents like Asia, America, Europe or Australia. Africa natural resources and climate that favor more biomass production than most other continents; vast arable land and relatively cheap and abundant human work force are current been underutilized. Although the amount of land devoted to cultivating cereals is increasing, it has not translated into increase crop yield due to environmental factors such as drought, high soil salinity, diseases and pests activities, and poor field and crop management. The traditional farming practices have done little in overcoming these challenges, thus the need to exploit the enormous advances in molecular and biotechnological transgenic approaches in order to produce crop varieties that will be able to cope under these adverse circumstances and produce better yields.
Of all the plant on which man has depended for his food, cereal grains are by far the most important. Since recorded history, cereals grains are the seed by cultivated grasses that include wheat, corn, 0at, barley, rye, rice, sorghum and millet.
There are a number of reasons why cereals have been important in man diet. They can be grown in areas with diverse climatic and soil conditions. They give yield peracre (0.4ha) as compared to most other crops and once harvested, their excellent storage stability combined with their high nutritive values make them most suitable for storage.
They are easy to be packaged and transported and can be used to produce a large variety of high desirable foods both for man and animals.
Cereal grains are the most important source of the world total food. The grains are eaten in many ways, sometimes as a paste or other preparation of the seeds more often milled and further processed into flour, starch, oil, bran, syrup, sugar, etc. They are also used to feed the animals that provide us with meat, eggs, millet, butter, cheese and a host of other foods. Cereals grains are preserved in ways which make them to last long for processing.