In recent centuries potatoes have become the world's most important tuber crop and its fourth most important source of food energy (after rice, wheat, and maize). Farmers and gardeners grow them worldwide.

DID YOU KNOW?
Legend has it that Sir Walter Raleigh made a gift of potato plants to Queen Elizabeth I but the royal cooks, having never seen the plant before, threw out the tubers and served the leaves making everybody ill. The potato was banned from court!

Rice

Rice is a dietary staple of more than half the world's human population, making it the most consumed grain.

DID YOU KNOW?
Throwing rice over a newly wed couples is an old tradition, for each grain that sticks in the brides hair the couple will have one child.

Beans are one of the most nutritionally complete foods available. In fact, no other food comes close to beans in providing protein, iron, magnesium, zinc, potassium and soluble fibre together in high amounts.

DID YOU KNOW?
The ancient brotherhood of Pythagoras, who flourished in the Ancient Greek city of Alexandria, believed that dead spirits might return to this world as beans, so beans were banned from their diet.

Spices and herbs can consist of flower buds, bark, seeds, leaves or many other parts of a plant. In the past, spices have been categorized as fragrant, aromatic plant products like cinnamon, cloves, ginger and pepper. These spices are found in plants grown in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. While herbs have always been recognized as the more green, leafy products like mint, rosemary and thyme grown in more temperate areas.

DID YOU KNOW?
When he lay siege to Rome, Alaric the Visigoth demanded a ransom of 3,000 pounds of pepper.

Sugar Cane is a tropical grass which requires strong sunlight and abundant water and can grow up to 5 metres tall. The cane looks like bamboo and it is here that Sucrose is stored. In ideal conditions the cane will grow to maturity in 12 months, is then cut and grows again provided the roots are not disturbed.

DID YOU KNOW?
700 years ago Sugar was such a luxury that it traded in London at a price that would equal $100 per kilo today.

Rubber starts life as a milky emulsion called Latex which is the sap of the Para rubber tree.  It is believed to have been named by Joseph Priestly, an English chemist who, in 1770, discovered that dried latex rubbed out pencil marks.

DID YOU KNOW?
If you can't find a rubber tree a fig tree or a dandelion might do, they both produce Latex.

Corn is the worlds most widely cultivated crop, over  600 million metric tons are produced each year exceeding rice and wheat. It is grown in almost every country with major producers being USA, China. India, Indonesia and South Africa.

DID YOU KNOW?
Would the United States exist today if corn did not exist? Some historians speculate that if the American Indians had not taught the first colonists how to grow corn the settlers would have starved to death or returned home.

Many vegetables have grown in the wild for thousands of years. When people began to eat them as food they simply gathered the wild vegetables. Then, about 11000 years ago people in began to grow vegetables, to farm the plants and to care for them. The farmers experimented and grew new kinds of the wild vegetables.

DID YOU KNOW?
Carrots are one of the world's most popular vegetables. But did you know that until about the 1600s carrots were purple? The orange ones were grown in Holland and sold to other countries in the 1600s and 1700s.

'The food of the gods', as cocoa was called 500 years ago when the Spanish came upon it in South America, remains a precious commodity.

DID YOU KNOW?
Most children of cocoa farmers have never tasted chocolate, most UK children have never seen a cocoa pod.

Tobacco production continues to increase despite the health issues regarding smoking. Worldwide production is expected to increase until at least 2010 (source UN FAO Jan 2004).

DID YOU KNOW?
A Huron legend tells how they called on the spirit Manitou to save them from famine and a beautiful naked girl descended from the clouds and announced that she would bring food. Where she sat tobacco appeared.

Many fruits have grown in the wild for thousands of years. When people began to eat them as food they simply gathered the wild fruits. Then, about 11000 years ago people in began to grow fruit, to farm the plants and to care for them. The farmers experimented and grew new kinds of the wild fruits.

DID YOU KNOW?
Breadfruit was one of the causes of the "Mutiny on the Bounty" as Captain Bligh was nurturing breadfruit plants with the crew's diminishing supply of drinking water.

Grain in the form of cereal crops is grown in greater quantity and provides more food energy to the human race than any other crop.

Some of the earliest indications of civilization occurred when people stopped chasing dinner and started growing it.  Settlements were formed and the era of the hunter-gatherer gave way to the farmer who grew cereal crops. 

DID YOU KNOW?
If a regular freight train was loaded with all the wheat grown in a single year it would stretch round the world nearly 3 times.

Fodder covers a multitude of plant life but refer to food cultivated to feed animals. In simple terms if it’s a plant that animals will eat and its grown by a farmer then it’s a fodder crop. The UN lists 17 primary crops including  Pumpkins, Turnips, Beet, Swede, Carrots and Legumes . Pastureland on which grass is grown is also included.

DID YOU KNOW?
A cow eats between 75 and 100lbs of food a day and drinks 35 to 40 gallons of water. Now you can understand why dairy farmers wear boots!