The rediscovery of wild food plants

What are WDPs?
  • Wild food plants (WFPs) constitute a special category it neither cultivated nor domesticated.
  • They grow wild in forests as well as in farmlands and are harvested by local people as sources of food.
  • For forest- dwelling communities, forests remain the main source of food, nutrition, and livelihoods even today.
  • The Soliga tribe is one such community in the Western Ghats who use their indigenous tradition of eating WFPs, to augment staple food crops.
More in news
  • Documentation of WFPs:
    (1) In recent years, there has been tremendous global interest in reviving the documentation of ethnobotanical information on wild, edible food sources.
    (2) The Soligas are one of few remaining forest-dwelling tribes in and around the forests of Biligiri Ranganath (BR) Hills, MM Hills, and Bandipur in Karnataka and the Sathyamangalam forests in Tamil Nadu.
  • Traditional knowledge of Soligas:
    (1) Diversity of WFPs consumed by the Soligas evolved over generations as a survival strategy.
    (2) They relate the usage of WFPs to seasonal plant availability and the status of resources.
    (3) They can predict the availability of WFPs with respect to micro-climatic changes, indicating a long-term intimate knowledge of their surroundings.
    (4) Their role in balancing food baskets of the poor, WFPs play an important role in maintaining the nutritional and livelihood security for forest communities during periods of drought or scarcity.
  • What WFP includes?
    (1) According to Soligas, they get a variety of mushrooms, tender bamboo shoots, and fruits like Jamune, Karanada, wood apple, custard apple and several varieties of leaves during the rainy season.
    (2) Honey and tubers like Dioscorea, makal and many ceropegia are harvested throughout the year.
    (3) In the hot dry summers, the Soligas use leaves and fruits like mango, jackfruit, amla, bel and tamarind.
    (4) Except rice, another staple food of Soligas which they grow, the forests give them everything else.
  • Key source of nutrition:
    (1) Edible leaves such as Kaddisoppu and Javanesoppu have a very high content of pro-vitamin A (Beta Carotene), anti-oxidants.
    (2) It is found that the leaves are rich in digestible iron, zinc, and manganese as well.
    (3) Tubers and fruits from the forest that are rich in vitamins and anti-oxidant, are in high demand in local markets.
Challenges and way forward
  • Threats to WFPs
    (1) Forests are mostly left out of policy decisions related to food security and nutrition.
    (2) Activities such as stone quarrying, mining and development pose grave threats to WFPs.
    (3) Forest foods are in high demand, though this may appear an opportunity for economic empowerment of tribal communities, over-harvesting could lead to degradation of the forests and ultimately, disappearance of these very species.
    (4) The other threat is from commercial monoculture plantations on forestland under afforestation and social forestry programmes.
  • Way forward:
    (1) For WFPs to be preserved for posterity, the forests must be co-managed by tribal communities.
    (2) For the tribal communities, the forest is not just a source of food, but is also a part of their identity.
    (3) Their way of life is respectful of nature and recognizes diversity in its different manifestations.
    (4) The tribal community’s relationship with the forest is one of belonging rather than ownership.
    (5) Community forest management is good for the health of the forests.
Source
Down to Earth



Posted by Jawwad Kazi on 29th Apr 2019
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