Role of underutilised leafy vegetables to attain nutrition security

Abstract

Plants (vegetation) are a precious gift of God for mankind. In India most rural inhabitants depend on wild edible plants and plant parts to meet their additional food requirements and to attain household food and nutritional security. India, being blessed with diverse climatic conditions, has a wide array of edible green leafy vegetables (GLV) some of which are locally grown and utilized from ancient periods as source of food as they contain many nutrients and minerals which can nourish the ever growing human population and help to attain nutrition security. Many of these GLV are found as weeds in the crop fields which are resilient, adaptive and tolerant to adverse climatic conditions hence it is described as “poor man's vegetables”. Although they can be raised at lower management costs even on poor marginal lands, they have remained underutilized due to lack of awareness and popularization of technologies for utilization. It is essential that the locally available GLV, which are inexpensive and easy to cook, be used in the diets to eradicate micronutrient malnutrition and also to prevent degenerative diseases. Therefore the present study was taken up with the objective of exploring the lesser known underutilized green leafy vegetables in different selected districts like Kolar, Chickballapura, Mysore, Davanagere, Shimoga of Karnataka state of South India to create awareness in the public and further research by scientific community. During the present study 45 species of green leafy vegetables were documented and tabulated as botanical name, family, common name, local name and mode of consumption.