Field Day on “Underutilized Legume Vegetables”
The Horticulture Division organized a Field Day on “Underutilized Legume Vegetables” on 13th January, 2017 under TSP. About 120 farmers attended the programme from different villages of Ri-Bhoi district. Dr. A.K. Jha, Principal Scientist & Head, Horticulture Division gave the welcome address and briefed the programme of Field day. The main objective of the programme is to expose the farmers to different leguminous crops and varieties. He also encouraged the farmers to take up the crops due to its richness in proteins, high market value, nitrogen fixation and drought tolerant.
Dr. A.K. Misra, Principal Scienctist & I/C of NBPGR Regional Station, Umiam emphasized on the conservation of legumes crops. Conservation is very important for our future safety. There are three organizations in India which are working on these aspects, viz., PPV&FRA, Geographical Indication Registry and NBPGR. PPV&FRA with main objective to take the farmers varieties. Till last year, 2200 varieties were registered; out of this 1/3 are farmer’s varieties. Most of these varieties come from Orissa, UP, Uttarakhand with very little from NEH Region. Geographical Indication Registry located in Chennai is looking after localized materials. For example Khasi Mandarin which is localized to Khasi Hills, Meghalaya has already been registered. About 282 different materials from across industries has been registered, out of which 82 are of agricultural origin and 12 are from NEH such as Khasi Mandarin, Memang Narang orange, Naga Chilli, Karbi Anglong ginger, Tezpur litchi, Tripura pineapple etc of agricultural materials. NBPGR, giving a kind of indexing to every material related to agricultural.
Dr. A.K. Tripathi, Principal Scientist & Head, Social Science narrated the nutritional aspects of underutilized leguminous crops. In Meghalaya, about 42% of population is under malnutrition. He emphasized on these crops to meet protein requirement. Children need more protein as it helps in body building and structure. Peoples in the region consume more carbohydrate due to high price of protein sources from meat. These underutilized legumes are a good supplement of protein.
Dr. Satish Chandra, Principal Scientist & Head, Plant Protection, emphasized on disease management of these crops. These crops are called undertutilized because they are not growing in large scale. Therefore, he encouraged farmers to grow in larger quantity such as winged bean, not growing in many places. These may be selling at higher prices and even may be sold outside the state. Furthermore, these crops are hardy, drought tolerant and do not need fertilizers due to their nitrogen fixation ability. These crops have very less insect-pest and diseases attack. But a good quality seeds are required for sowing. He finally wished the farmers may be enriched with knowledge and knowhow on these crops, so that they cultivate and conserve these crops for their own benefit as well as of the society. He also encouraged farmers to produce in large quantity for better marketing. The vote of thank was proposed by Dr. V.K. Verma, Scientist (Horticulture). The programme was followed by distribution of leguminous, vegetables seeds to farmers.
The programme was coordinated by Dr. V.K. Verma, Dr. A.K. Jha, Dr. Pankaj Sinha.
