All India Coordinated Research Network on Underutilized Crops, Annual Report 2007

Abstract

Underutilized crops constitute those plant species that occur as life support species in extreme environmental conditions or threatened habitats, having appropriate genetic make up to survive under such adverse situations and also possess promising nutritional or industrial utility for a variety of purposes for the present as well as future needs of human kind. Their cultivation is restricted to specialized geographical pockets in different agro-ecological regions mainly by the poor farming communities, who have little access to modern agro-inputs and well organized marketing and communication infrastructure. Having superior nutritional quality, these crops provide household food and nutritional security to the millions of impoverished people living in remote corners of the country often in inhospitable terrains, where public food distribution system is not yet strong.