SHILLONG: At a time when urbanites prefer junk food and consume chemically induced vegetables, a need to revive and promote consumption of wild edible plants having medicinal properties, has been felt.
Most of the people are not aware of the names of the long forgotten wild plants, the Social Service Center (SSC), Shillong Archdiocese has taken steps to revive and promote wild edible plants.
Director of SSC, Father Bernard Laloo said the future goal is to document wild edible vegetables which contain medicinal properties.
Speaking to The Shillong Times Laloo said, “The urban people do not even know the names of such vegetables. We are here to revive the consumption of wild edible vegetables which have long been forgotten. As for the documentation, we need to contact ICAR and NEHU to analyse the nutritional content of the vegetables.”
Sounding a red alert, he said wild edible vegetables are considered endangered due to deforestation.
“Deforestation is also a contributing factor since some of these vegetables grow in the forests and thrive in certain climatic conditions. Some of the vegetables are cultivated by the people,” Laloo said.
Some of the wild edible vegetables sold at the Farmers market is Jalinshir (good for diabetes, blood pressure), jali (people in rural areas cooked the vegetable with rice) and Janem.
The SSC started a Farmers Club in East Khasi Hills and Ri-Bhoi and held a farmers market.
The Farmers’ market is held every second Thursday of the month at Savio Hall, Laitumkhrah.
Laloo said the organisation is only providing the farmers a platform to display their agricultural produce and also brings about an interaction between the sellers and the buyers and does not charge anything from the farmers.
The vegetables sold at the farmer’s market are chemical free.
Landlessness of farmers
Laloo pointed out that major grievances faced by the farmers in the state is landlessness since most of them work on lands owned by others.
“Some of the farmers don’t have lands of their own and because of this, it becomes hard for them to switch to organic farming,” he said, adding that some of other grievances of the farmers are absence of market and pricing of vegetables.
Indigenous Food
At the backyard of Savio Hall, in a shed three people were busy making rice and fish and stuffed them in a hallowed bamboo without the use of any utensils.
The key resources are bamboo, leaves and firewood. Two men would constantly adjust the heat making sure the food tastes good.
Nevar Syiemlieh from Pahambir, Ri-Bhoi district said such kind of cooking is mostly followed in their village.
Laloo said, “Most people go for junk and fast food even though the nutritional quality is low. But then, there are many vegetables which have high nutritional value and lots of them contain medicinal properties.”
He added that the indigenous food is nothing unique with the rural people while it is special for the urban folks.
Another agricultural revival is the use of millets which has long been a food for poultry and later used sparsely and is currently back in the plate.
Farmers have started to cook millet cake, carrot cake using millet, banana cake using millet.
