query: part_of crop protection
supports: Mexico (, modern Nahuatl ), officially the United Mexican States, is a federal republic in the southern half of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometers (over 760,000 sq mi), Mexico is the sixth largest country in the Americas by total area and the 13th largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of over 120 million, it is the eleventh most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world while being the second most populous country in Latin America. Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and a federal district that is also its capital and most populous city. Other metropolises include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana and León. GRAIN (initially the International Coalition for Development Action or ICDA) is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. Rice is the seed of the grass species "Oryza sativa" (Asian rice) or "Oryza glaberrima" (African rice). As a cereal grain, it is the most widely consumed staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in Asia. It is the agricultural commodity with the third-highest worldwide production, after sugarcane and maize, according to 2012 FAOSTAT data.
  Since a large portion of maize crops are grown for purposes other than human consumption, rice is the most important grain with regard to human nutrition and caloric intake, providing more than one-fifth of the calories consumed worldwide by humans.
  Wild rice, from which the crop was developed, may have its native range in Australia. Chinese legends attribute the domestication of rice to Shennong, the legendary emperor of China and inventor of Chinese agriculture. Genetic evidence has shown that rice originates from a single domestication 8,20013,500 years ago in the Pearl River valley region of Ancient China. Previously, archaeological evidence had suggested that rice was domesticated in the Yangtze River valley region in China. Sugarcane, or sugar cane, are several species of tall perennial true grasses of the genus "Saccharum", tribe Andropogoneae, native to the warm temperate to tropical regions of South Asia and Melanesia, and used for sugar production. It has stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in the sugar sucrose, which accumulates in the stalk internodes. The plant is tall. All sugar cane species interbreed and the major commercial cultivars are complex hybrids. Sugarcane belongs to the grass family Poaceae, an economically important seed plant family that includes maize, wheat, rice, and sorghum, and many forage crops. Oryza is a genus of plants in the grass family. It includes the major food crop rice (species "Oryza sativa" and "Oryza glaberrima"). Members of the genus grow as tall, wetland grasses, growing to 12 m tall; the genus includes both annual and perennial species. The 21st century is the current century of the "Anno Domini" era, (Latin for "in the year of Our Lord [Jesus Christ]") in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. It began on January 1, 2001 and will end on December 31, 2100. It is the first century of the 3rd millennium. It is distinct from the time span known as the 2000s, which began on January 1, 2000 and will end on December 31, 2099. Plant protection is the science and practice of managing invertebrate pests and vertebrate pests , plant diseases , weeds and other pest organisms that damage agricultural crops and forestry . Agricultural crops include field crops ( maize , wheat , rice , etc. ) , vegetable crops ( potatoes , cabbages , etc. ) and fruit and horticultural crops . It encompasses : Pesticide - based approaches such as herbicides , insecticides and fungicides Biological pest control approaches such as cover crops , trap crops and beetle banks Barrier - based approaches such as agrotextiles and bird netting Animal psychology - based approaches such as bird scarers Biotechnology - based approaches such as plant breeding and genetic modification Chemical pest control Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east. Australia's capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney. The ton is a unit of measure. It has a long history and has acquired a number of meanings and uses over the years. It is used principally as a unit of mass. Its original use as a measurement of volume has continued in the capacity of cargo ships and in terms such as the freight ton. It can also be used as a measure of energy, for truck classification, or as a colloquial term. In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) formed from the ovary after flowering. SEED is a block cipher developed by the Korea Information Security Agency (KISA). It is used broadly throughout South Korean industry, but seldom found elsewhere. It gained popularity in Korea because 40-bit encryption was not considered strong enough, so the Korea Information Security Agency developed its own standard. However, this decision has historically limited the competition of web browsers in Korea, as no major SSL libraries or web browsers supported the SEED algorithm, requiring users to use an ActiveX control in Internet Explorer for secure web sites. Maize (; "Zea mays" subsp. "mays", from after Taíno "mahiz"), also known as corn, is a large grain plant first domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The six major types of corn are dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, popcorn, flour corn, and sweet corn. China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia. With a population of over 1.381 billion, it is the world's most populous country. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China, and its capital is Beijing. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau), and claims sovereignty over Taiwan. The country's major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a great power and a major regional power within Asia, and has been characterized as a potential superpower. The Levant (Arabic:  "") is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean. In its widest historical sense, the Levant included all of the eastern Mediterranean with its islands, that is, it included all of the countries along the Eastern Mediterranean shores, extending from Greece to Cyrenaica. The term "Levant" entered English in the late 15th century from French. It derives from the Italian "Levante", meaning "rising", implying the rising of the sun in the east. As such, it is broadly equivalent to the Arabic term "Mashriq", meaning "the land where the sun rises". Wild rice (Ojibwe: Manoomin; also called Canada rice, Indian rice, and water oats) are four species of grasses forming the genus Zizania, and the grain that can be harvested from them. The grain was historically gathered and eaten in both North America and China. While now a delicacy in North America, the grain is eaten less in China, where the plant's stem is used as a vegetable. Oryza glaberrima, commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown in West Africa, and was brought to the Americas by enslaved West African rice farmers. It is now largely a subsistence crop, rarely sold in markets even in West Africa. Popcorn is a type of corn that expands from the kernel and puffs up when heated. Popcorn is able to pop like amaranth grain, sorghum, quinoa, and millet. When heated, pressure builds within the kernel, and a small explosion (or "pop") is the end result. Some strains of corn are now cultivated specifically as popping corns. The British tonne (British and SI; SI symbol: t), which is the same as the metric ton in the United States, is a non-SI metric unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms; or one megagram (Mg); it is equivalent to approximately pounds, or 0.984 long tons (imperial). Although not part of the SI "per se", the tonne is "accepted for use with" SI units and prefixes by the International Committee for Weights and Measures, along with several other units like the bar, litre and day. In botany, a caryopsis (plural caryopses) is a type of simple dry fruitone that is monocarpellate (formed from a single carpel) and indehiscent (not opening at maturity) and resembles an achene, except that in a caryopsis the pericarp is fused with the thin seed coat. Wheat ("Triticum" spp., most commonly "T. aestivum") is a cereal grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), originally from the Levant region but now cultivated worldwide. In 2016, world production of wheat was 749 million tonnes, making it the second most-produced cereal after maize (1.03 billion tonnes), with more than rice (499 million tonnes). Since 1960, world production of wheat and other grain crops has tripled and is expected to grow further through the middle of the 21st Century. Flint corn ("Zea mays" var. "indurata"; also known as Indian corn or sometimes calico corn) is a variant of maize, the same species as common corn. Because each kernel has a hard outer layer to protect the soft endosperm, it is likened to being hard as flint; hence the name. Sweet corn ("Zea mays" convar. "saccharata" var. "rugosa"; also called sugar corn and pole corn) is a variety of maize with a high sugar content. Sweet corn is the result of a naturally occurring recessive mutation in the genes which control conversion of sugar to starch inside the endosperm of the corn kernel. Unlike field corn varieties, which are harvested when the kernels are dry and mature (dent stage), sweet corn is picked when immature (milk stage) and prepared and eaten as a vegetable, rather than a grain. Since the process of maturation involves converting sugar to starch, sweet corn stores poorly and must be eaten fresh, canned, or frozen, before the kernels become tough and starchy.
  History.
  Sweet corn occurs as a spontaneous mutation in field corn and was grown by several Native American tribes. The Iroquois gave the first recorded sweet corn (called 'Papoon') to European settlers in 1779. It soon became a popular food in southern and central regions of the United States.
  Open pollinated cultivars of white sweet corn started to become widely available in the United States in the 19th century. Two of the most enduring cultivars, still available today, are 'Country Gentleman' (a Shoepeg corn with small kernels in irregular rows) and 'Stowell's Evergreen'. Shennong (which can be variously translated as "God Farmer" or "God Peasant"), also known as the Wugushen ( "Five Grains' [or Five Cereals'] God") or also Wuguxiandi ( "First Deity of the Five Grains"), is a deity in Chinese religion, a mythical sage ruler of prehistoric China. Shennong has at times been counted amongst the Three Sovereigns (also known as "Three Kings" or "Three Patrons"), a group of deities or deified kings said to have lived some 4,500 years ago. Shennong has been thought to have taught the ancient Chinese not only their practices of agriculture, but also the use of herbal drugs. Shennong is among the group of variously named heroic persons and deities who have been traditionally given credit for various inventions: these include the hoe, plow (both "leisi" style and the plowshare), axe, digging wells, agricultural irrigation, preserving stored seeds by using boiled horse urine, the weekly farmers market, the Chinese calendar (especially the division into the 24 "jieqi" or solar terms), and to have refined the therapeutic understanding of taking pulse measurements, acupuncture, and moxibustion, and to have instituted the harvest thanksgiving ceremony (Zhaji Sacrificial Rite, later known as the Laji Rite). Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains or roots and used to make many different foods. Cereal flour is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history. Wheat flour is one of the most important ingredients in Oceanic, European, South American, North American, Middle Eastern, North Indian and North African cultures, and is the defining ingredient in their styles of breads and pastries. Indigenous peoples, also known as first peoples, aboriginal peoples, native peoples, or autochthonous peoples, are ethnic groups who are descended from and identify with the original inhabitants of a given region, in contrast to groups that have settled, occupied or colonized the area more recently. Groups are usually described as indigenous when they maintain traditions or other aspects of an early culture that is associated with a given region. Not all indigenous peoples share such characteristics. Indigenous peoples may be settled in a given locale/region or exhibit a nomadic lifestyle across a large territory, but they are generally historically associated with a specific territory on which they depend. Indigenous societies are found in every inhabited climate zone and continent of the world. Flour corn ("Zea mays" var. "amylacea") is a variety of corn with a soft starchy endosperm and a thin pericarp. It is primarily used to make corn flour. Oryza sativa, commonly known as Asian rice, is the plant species most commonly referred to in English as rice. "Oryza sativa" is a grass with a genome consisting of 430Mb across 12 chromosomes. It is renowned for being easy to genetically modify, and is a model organism for cereal biology. A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grains are grown in greater quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop and are therefore staple crops. Edible grains from other plant families, such as buckwheat (Polygonaceae), quinoa (Amaranthaceae) and chia (Lamiaceae), are referred to as pseudocereals. Dent corn also known as yellow dent corn, Reid's yellow dent corn, white dent corn, or field corn, is a variety of maize or corn with a high soft starch content. It received its name because of the small indentation ("dent") at the crown of each kernel on a ripe ear of corn. It is a variety developed by northern Illinois farmer James L. Reid. Reid and his father, Robert Reid, moved from Brown County, Ohio to Tazewell County, Illinois in 1846 bringing with them a red corn variety known as "Johnny Hopkins", and crossed it with varieties of flint corn and floury corn. Most of today's hybrid corn varieties and cultivars are derived from it. This variety won a prize at the 1893 World's Fair.
candidates: 1960 21st century africa agriculture anno domini arabic asia australia beijing biology botany cargo china chinese classification communist party communist party of china community country crown culture day division era family french genome genus gregorian calendar gulf of mexico history human indigenous peoples industry islands jesus christ mass may milk north america pacific ocean plant pop process production sea sovereign state species state sugar sun the americas thought var variety wild
answer: agriculture