Vol. 10, Issue 4 (2021)

Author(s):
Priyanka Sharma, Monish Roy, Bidhan Roy and Gadge Sushant Sundarrao

Abstract:
North East India comprising of eight states namely Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland, and the Himalayan state of Sikkim is surrounded by wide physiographical variations. This region is considered to be endowed with richest biodiversity conservation in terms of underutilised horticultural crops, spices, plantation crops as well as medicinal and aromatic plants including ornamental plants. Being the richest reservoir of genetic resources of various indigenous vegetable crops, it plays a crucial role with special reference to food and nutritional security of the tribal population of the entire states of North East India. In order to resolve the issues of nutritional securities, encouraging the rural and tribal populations for maximum utilisation of these indigenous vegetables is one of the first and foremost options since the underutilized vegetables are embedded with vitamins, minerals, fiber and phyto-chemicals. Besides these, it also contains phyto-chemicals that have free radical scavenging and anti-inflammatory properties which are endowed with many health benefits. Considering the importance of nutritional and economic values of such beneficial vegetables, emphasis should be confined to its proper cultivation practises as well as conservation of its germplasm for further utilisation by the population of North East India. Availability of several indigenous vegetables in the rural regions of North East India and its nutritional attributes with respect to human health benefits have been highlighted and reviewed in this paper.