Uncultivated Plant Food of Tribals Of Jhakhand

Abstract

Tribals constitute an important segment of the population of India, representing about 8 per cent of the total population of the country. The total tribal population of newly constituted Jharkhand State is 60,44, 010 which is 27.7 percent of total population of Jharkhand. They have their own socio-cultural pattern, tradition and typical food practices. Most of these tribals have small or marginal land holding. They are hardly able to grow food grains for 8-10 months, for rest, they depend on the forest. They are mainly food collectors rather than food growers. Their diet comprises variety of uncultivated plant foods i. e. flowers, fruits, tubers, wild-yam, stems, mushroom, seeds and leaves, but no authentic literature on such tribal foods is available. Keeping this in mind, an attempt was made to document such tribal plant foods with food security orientation. The study was conducted in three districts of Jharkhand covering six community development blocks. Date was collected from three hundred families belonging to six tribes from 12 villages through PRA exercises and interview schedule by paying repeated visits to the study area. The study has identified 59 type of leaves, 18 type of each, flowers and fruits, 8 type of stems, 13 type of tubers, 8 type of seeds and 13 type

of wild mushrooms, which is a part of tribal diet in one form or other. Many of them have medicinal value and are used by tribals for curing health related problems prevalent in their area. Many of these unknown plants can be future food plants and exploited to meet the food and nutrition security of the nation. The nutrition value of majority of such foods is precisely not known and should be put to food techno logical research including nutrition, toxicity, processing and be profitably harnessed into the services of mankind.