RAINBOW DIET - GOVERNANCE
News: ICAR-CTCRI
to take its tuber-based rainbow diet campaign to more States
What's in the news?
● 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
sizable tribal populations in Odisha.
Key takeaways:
● 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.
● 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.
Rainbow Diet Campaign:
Aim:
● To
popular biofortified tubers and
value-added products made from them among the tribal communities for
tackling malnutrition and ensuring a balanced diet.
Features:
● 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 popularizing the orange-fleshed
sweet potato (rich in beta-carotene), the purple-fleshed sweet potato, and
purple-fleshed yam (rich in anthocyanin).
Significance:
● Biofortified
tubers were low-cost, natural solutions for promoting health, and wellness in
tribal communities.
Go back to basics:
CTCRI:
● The
ICAR-Central Tuber Crops Research Institute (CTCRI) aims to undertake basic,
strategic and applied research for generating technologies to enhance
productivity and utilization potential
of tuber crops (other than potato).
Headquarters: Thiruvananthapuram,
Kerala
Mandate:
● The
Institute has a broad mandate of generating research information on tropical
tuber crops that help to enhance productivity and improve the utilization
potential.
Work:
● 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.