Egypt or China is most likely the center for the origin of cultivated barley. Like wheat, barley was already an established food crop when the earliest historical records originated, and it may have been cultivated as long as 15,000 B.C. Barley cultivation also seems to have been evident in other parts of the world at later times. For example, north-western Europe is estimated to have cultivating barley around 3000 BC.
Barley was the staple food of people in many countries for ages, but it drew away from favor due to changes in food preferences. Barley is now again returning to favor as it is considered the best food for health by nutritionists.
Barley grows over a broader environmental range than any other cereal grain. In addition to this broad ecological adaptation, other distinctive characteristics include almost equal utility as food and feed and superior adaptability to malting for brewing purposes.
Much of the world’s barley is produced outside of the regions where cereals such as maize and rice can grow well. Barley is one of the cereals which tolerate rather well abiotic stress conditions. Growers driven by the market demands tend to cultivate wheat even in areas which are more suited for barley; such areas can, however, easily be brought again under barley.
As a world crop, its production is somewhat less than half that of the other principal cereal grains (42% of corn, 38% of wheat, 43% of rice). This consists primarily of subspecies of Hordeum vulgare L; these may be two rowed of six rowed types according to the seed distribution on the plant spikelets.
The productivity of barley cultivars has risen by an annual rate of approximately 1%–2%, which is due to:
(1) genetic breeding progress in terms of more productive cultivars,
(2) more efficient disease and insect control,
(3) improved fertilization schemes, and
(4) improved agricultural production technology (harvest, storage, etc.) in general.
Barley has many economic uses in today. Barley is produced primarily as animal feed. For example, over half of the barley grown in the United States is used for livestock feed. Barley as feed has the same nutritive value as corn. Barley is high in carbohydrates, with moderate amounts of protein, calcium and phosphorus.
Production of barley
