All India Coordinated Research Network on Potential Crops, Progress Report Kharif 2015

Abstract

Living in close contact with the nature, human beings learnt to use plants for food, fodder, fibre, medicine and other economic purposes. Since the dawn of agriculture, domestication and necessity based gathering of plant species have helped in the evolution of specially useful plant species. Over the years, these biological resources have been generously exploited for the benefit of humankind and the dependence of human kind on plant resources is likely to continue in the foreseeable future. So far, out of the estimated global wealth of 80,000 edible plant species, only about 150 have been widely used and of these only about 30 species provide 90 per cent of the food for the world’s population. Consequently, a large number of plant species still remain under/unutilized. This has resulted in narrowing down of our food basket and restricted the options for unforeseen times that may arise from the unpredictable global climatic changes and other natural catastrophes in future. Therefore, the potential plant species of economic importance are the key to sustainable agriculture in most of the developing countries facing acute resource crunch as well as rapid depletion of natural resources due to ever-increasing population, rapid industrialization and urbanization. The population experts have predicted that the world population will grow by an unprecedented 90 million people per year, which is equivalent to Mexico’s entire population in 1995. Unfortunately, changing land use patterns, rapidly increasing pressure on land both for agriculture and forestry, massive development projects as well as expanding demand for industrial and urban sectors have posed serious threat to the existing agro-biodiversity, including the plant species that hold immense potential for the future.