The ICAR-Central Tuber Crops Research Institute (CTCRI) is gearing up to extend its tuber crop-based ‘rainbow diet’ campaign to more areas in the country with sizeable tribal populations.
The CTCRI would launch the campaign in Odisha in the current fiscal, and, by the end of 2024-25, planned to cover nine districts in that State, CTCRI officials said. The initiative was aimed at popularising biofortified tubers and value-added products made from them among the tribal communities for tackling malnutrition and ensuring a balanced diet, the institute’s director G. Byju said.
‘’In Odisha, the campaign will be launched in nine districts that have large tribal populations. We are looking at Mayurbhanj, Sundergarh, Kandhamal, Keonjhar, Gajapati, Koraput, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur and Rayagada. Two or three districts will be taken up in the first phase in 2023-24, after which it will be scaled up,’‘ P.S. Sivakumar, Principal Scientist and Project Leader of the campaign at CTCRI, said.
The Thiruvananthapuram-based CTCRI has a regional centre at Bhubaneswar.
A constituent institute of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) working on tropical tuber crops, CTCRI had introduced biofortified sweet potato varieties in Anjaw district in Arunachal Pradesh and Dhalai district in Tripura in 2020.
A typical ‘rainbow diet’ is a meal plan comprising different-coloured fresh fruits and vegetables. The colours in these natural foods are caused by specific phytonutrients. With its tuber crop-based rainbow diet, the CTCRI is popularising the orange-fleshed sweet potato (rich in beta-carotene), the purple-fleshed sweet potato, and purple-fleshed yam (rich in anthocyanin).
Last week, the ‘rainbow diet’ campaign was launched in Attappadi in Kerala’s Palakkad district. On the occasion, the institute unveiled a ‘Tuber Crops Rainbow Diet Plate’ featuring biofortified sweet potato, cassava, and also millets. In the southern State, the CTCRI had plans to expand the programme to Wayanad and a number of other districts in the months ahead.
Over the years, the CTCRI has developed numerous improved tuber varieties that have since found acceptance with the farming community. More recently, the institute has also forayed into millets, experimenting with tuber-millet combinations for nutrition-rich value-added products. Biofortified tubers were low-cost, natural solutions for promoting health, and wellness in tribal communities, Dr. Byju said. The CTCRI tuber crop programme in Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura was progressing, Dr. Sivakumar said.
