Ramachandran K G
Tubers were one of the primary and important food sources of energy and nutrition for all the indigenous community members in Nilambur. The collection of tubers was once a family business and all members of a family together had been involved in the process of gathering wild roots and tubers from the forests. Most of the children from these tribal hamlets are in residential schools now and they return to their homes only during the summer holidays. Many of them hardly ever go to forests with their parents nowadays. Wild tubers were once abundantly available in this valley according to the community elders here. They say that there has been a considerable decline in the availability of these tubers. They think that changes in the climate conditions may be one of the reasons leading to this shortage of wild edible crops.
A discussion on the possibility of establishing a community managed tuber nursery cum tuber bank was carried out with community members and they accepted the idea. After the discussions with community groups from different hamlets, a group (Forest Rights Committee) from Ettappara Kattunaicken hamlet took the responsibility of the raising different species of indigenous varieties of tubers in their settlement. They cleared close to 50 cents of land to plant 25 different varieties of tuber seeds. Some of the indigenous varieties of the tubers were brought from Wayanad. Many other varieties of wild tubers were sourced locally. They have decided to raise these tuber crops and a village based tuber bank will be functioning at Ettappara. The group has decided to distribute the seeds of tubers grown here to other villages after the first harvest.
