Back to: Agricultural Science Primary 4
Welcome to class!
In today’s class, we will be talking about why farm produce should be processed. Enjoy the class!
Processing of farm produce
Meaning of farm produce processing
Processing is the art of changing the produce of a crop plant to the forms that are useful to man. It is the treatment given to harvested food crops before they can be used, eaten, or sold.
Activity
What is the woman in the picture below doing? Can you explain the process to tour teacher?
Importance of processing farm produce
Farm produce are crops we harvest from our farms or gardens. We process farm produce for many reasons. We shall now discuss a few of those reasons here.
- Processing makes the product easy to use when it is needed: For example, the product that we really need from cassava is garri, but we cannot get garri from cassava tubers without first processing them.
- Processing helps to improve food value: This means that it makes food good or suitable for eating for a long time. We cannot keep cassava tubers for a long time without them getting spoilt. But we can keep garri fresh for a longer period of time.
- Processing helps to remove poisonous agents from the produce: For example, Processing of cassava tuber helps to remove the liquid that can be harmful to man and frying helps to remove the remaining poisonous liquid.
- It helps to maintain the taste of food for a long time: If we leave cassava tuber for some time, its taste will change. But we can keep garri for a longer time without its taste changing.
- Processing prepares food for storage for a long time: Processed food is easier to store than unprocessed produce.
- Processing improves the market value of farm: Cassava can be processed in garri, starch or flour for baking. Each of these products has more market value than cassava.
- To get different varieties of foodstuff from the same farm produce: Like the example mentioned above, three different varieties of products are obtained from cassava.
- Provides employment opportunities for people: This is possible since processing involves many activities, many hands are therefore needed to take part in each activity.
- Processing makes it easy to transport farm produce: For example, tomatoes can be processed into tomato paste which is easier and less costly to transport.
General evaluation
- What is farm produce?
- What do you understand by the processing of farm produce?
- State two importance of processing farm produce
Weekend assignment
- List five different farm produce that is found in Nigeria.
- Mention two varieties of products each obtained from the farm produce listed above.
In our next class, we will be talking about the Preservation of Farm Produce. We hope you enjoyed the class.
Should you have any further question, feel free to ask in the comment section below and trust us to respond as soon as possible.
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