Crops Classification

IMAGE 2.2
FAO Crop Suitablity Approach1
FAO database2

Food crops

Temperate cereals Wheat (spring) Barley, oats
Wheat (winter) Rye, wheat
Rice Rice Rice, paddy
Maize Maize (temperate) Maize
Maize (tropical)
Tropical cereals Millet (temperate, tropical) Millets
Sorghum (temperate, tropical) Sorghum
Pulses Beans (temperate, tropical) Dry beans, dry peas, chick peas, dry broad beans, green beans, green peas, lentils
Roots & tubers Cassava, potato Cassava, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams
Oil crops Groundnut, sesame, soya bean, sunflower (temperate, tropical) Groundnuts, rapeseed, sesameseed, soybeans, sunflowerseed

Biofuel crops

Sugar cane Sugar cane -
Maize Maize
Woody biomass Fuelwood species in Adaptability group I, II
Non-woody biomass Grass species in Adaptability group III, IV

Feed crops

Grass & fodder species Legume species in Adaptability group I, II -
Grass species in Adaptability group III, IV
Rainfall based pasture productivity

1 See FAO (1981) for foodcrops, Kassam for fuelwood species, Kassam et al. (1991) for grass and legume species, and Pagot (1992) for rainfall-based pasture productivity
2 See FAO (1999)