Agartala, February 25 (TIWN): In order to offer sustainable livelihood of tribal farmers through popularizing high yield non acrid variety of some minor tuber crop like Elephant Foot Yam var, Krishi Vigyan Kendra of Divyodoya has been implementing a plan “Enhancing food security and sustainable livelihoods in the North-Eastern India through tuber crops technologies” at Boltali village under Khowai sub-division since 2013.

 The project is sponsored by Central Tuber Crop Research Institute (CTCRI), Trivandrum, Kerala. The project was started with as many as 31 of beneficiaries for front line demonstration of Elephant Foot Yam, Colocasia, Tapioca way back in 2013 while a notable numbers of new farmers were included and seed materials were distributed by previous years adopted farmer with whole hearted technical support and monitoring from scientists of KVK.

After the completion of two years, a survey was conducted to verify the acceptability and it is observed that out of these three crop Elephant foot Yam var, Gajendra, Colocasia var Muktakeshi were very much accepted by the farmers because of high yield, non acridity nature, good cooking quality, very less pest and disease infestation.

Tuber crops are rich source of carbohydrate and people can live healthy only having carbohydrate without protein and fat. Now- a- days climate is changing gradually and with this changed climate, people need to have some alternative crops which can grow under such stress condition.

Tuber crops especially Cassava, Elephant Foot Yam and Yam are such crop which can withstand some extent to drought condition, can be grown in waste land, less affected by pests and diseases and with minimum care. Tuber crop cultivation contributes positively to the economic empowerment of the rural people.