Wild Tubers for Food Security: Challenging Ahead in Odisha, India.

Sanjeet Kumar

Ravenshaw University, Cuttack.

sanjeet.biotech@gmail.com

 

From the past, edible wild tubers have played a very vital part in supplementing the diet of the tribal and rural people of India and particularly in Odisha. The dependence of these tuber crops have gradually decline as more exotic foods have been introduces but even now a day aborginals still use them during off farming or famine as a supplement for their basic need of food.  Some of them, tubers are preserved for use in dry period or sold in weekly rural market such are Dioscoria puber ( Khamba aalu ), Dioscorea alata (Desia aalu), Dioscoria bulbifera (Pita aalu) and Amorphophalas painifolius (Ban saru). Apart from their traditional use of food, potentially they have good nutritional food values, which provide the minerals, vitamins, proteins, fibers and carbohydrates in huge amount so helpful in treating energy deficiency. They can eaten raw or as vegetables. They have also rich as medicinal values and used in several diseases as well as offered commercial opportunity as economic plant. They provide fibres which prevent constipation. These types of wild tuber crops can be incorporated in commercial crop plants, which will improve food security, economy in tribal areas and helps in regeneration of barren lands. Therefore it is consider that special attention should be paid in order to maintain and improve this important source of food supply. In Order to remedy, a wider and sustained acceptance of wild tubers as important dietary components must be stimulated.

Tubers : Valuable food from the Biodiversity for future.

Sanjeet Kumar

Department of Life science, regional Institute of Education, Bhubaneswar

Tubers are various types of modified plant structures that are enlarged to store nutrients.  Tubers are basically swollen, underground plant parts that store food. They are used by plants to survive the winter or dry months and provide energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growing season and they are a means of asexual reproduction. There are both stem and root tubers.

Economic value of tubers

                                The tremendous importance of roots and tubers as a source of income for poor farmers and of food overlooked in the debate improving food security and eradicating poverty in developing countries( Gregory J.Scott et al. 2000, vii.)

Medicinal value of tubers

                                  The tubers of wild plants are highly acrid and cause irritation in throat and mouth due to excessive amount of calcium oxalate present in the tubers. The tubers are anodyne, anti-inflammatory, antihaemorrhoidal, haemostatic, expectorant, carminative, digestive, appetizer, stomachic, antihelmintic, liver tonic, aphrodisiac, emmenogogue, rejuvenating and tonic. They are traditionally used in arthralgia, elephantiasis, tumers, inflammations, hemorrhoids, hemorrhages, vomiting, cough, bronchitis, asthma, anorexia, dyspepsia, flatulence, colic, constipation, helminthiasis hepatopathy, Also the tubers are reported to have antiprotease activity, analgesic activity, cytotoxic activity and CNS depressants activity( Yadu nandan Dey and Ajoy Kumar ghosh, 2010.)

                                     Many plants are known to have beneficial therapeutic effects as noted in the traditional Indian system of medicine, Ayurveda. The effects of plant extract on bacteria have been studied by a very large number of researchers in different parts of the world. Much work has been done on ethnomedicinal plants in India. Interest in a large number of traditional natural products has increased. It has been suggested that aqueous and ethanolic extracts from plants used in allopathic medicine are potential sources of antiviral, antitumoral and antimicrobial agents (R.Nair, et al., 2005). According to World Health Report of infectious diseases 2000, overcoming antibiotic resistance is the major issue of the WHO for the next millennium. Hence the last decade witnessed an increase in the investigations of plants as a source of human disease management.

Sanjeet Kumar

Lasia spinosa : a tuber of Odisha.

Lasia sinosa L. belongs to family Araceae , is a aquatic marshy plant with a creeping spiny rhizome. The plant usually grows surrounding mountain river in Simlipal Reserve Forest.

Medicinal Value :-

• Stem - boil and bath to relieve itching.
• Leaves - Relief of abdominal pain.
• Rhizome - Possessed a wide ranging antioxidant activity.
• Anticestodal activity.
• Rhizome and leaves possess expectorant properties.
• The roots are boiled and the water to bath newborn babies.
• Leaves used for aches and pain.
• Plants are used as Anthelmintics.

Fig :- Lasia spinosa L in Simlipal Biosphere Reserve Forest

Sanjeet Kumar