Neglected crops hold the key to future food security

Neglected crops hold the key to future food security

Jobin K J

Anju V Padma

  The food habits we inherited from our forefathers are disappering rapidly these days. No one is bothered about the locally available products that once we consumed largely. The crops like amaranthus, also known as common man’s spinach, horse radish, bread fruit, chayote, tender core of banana stem, lotus root, noni, pisonia, agathi, spine gourd, yams, coleus, colocasia,star anase etc are almost forgotten.

  But these crops hold the key to securing our food security in the future, said Dr. K.V.Peter, former vice chancellor of Kerala Agricultural University. He was presenting a paper at the NASI symposium.

  “The global population is growing at an increased rate. According to UN projections, World population will rise to 9.1 billion in 2050 and there wont be enough food to feed all of them if we don’t find a solution to sustain our food production immediately”, he said. “World’s food supply is now in a critical situation. Majority of food is provided by a small group of plants. There is a huge problem of malnutrition and under nourishment. One billion people go to bed hungry everyday;3.6 billion is anaemic; many children have stunted growth and 400,000 die every year due to lack of zinc in their diet; and 40,000 children in the world are blind  due to the  deficiency of Vitamin A.”

  The situation is alaming in Kerala too. The agricultural land is shrinking fast; there are problems of high wages and water shortage. Also, factors like climate change, natural disasters, huge post –harvest loss, unstable geo political scenario, competition for land, water, and labour, new array of pest and diseses, poor energy management, and new life style and food habits are challenging our food sector. So we must incorporate science in agriculture to maximise our production,Dr. Peter pointed out.

 Application of nano technology

   The collaboration of Science, especially nano technology, with traditional and alternative medicine has led to a better understanding of these conventional branches of medicine, said Jayesh R. Bellare,the first head of IIT bio science and bio engineering school, Bombay. He was talking at the NASI symposium here.

  The traditional and alternative system of medicines have long been a controversial area as it lacked standardised and qualitative methods of preparation, storage and use. They were not studied in context of modern science. But now, with the application of nano technology to study such medicines we are able to understand its composition to the minute levels.

  While pursuing these studies,he said, it is important to have an open intellectual approach. It doesn’t matter what the researcher personally thinks of the subject. However, the field offers huge opportunities, he said.