India’s indigenous fruits are disappearing from diets and the landscape
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During my summer break in my hometown in northeast India’s Assam this year, I found myself craving a favourite summertime fruit from my childhood: Leteku, or Burmese grape. A quick run to the local fruit market offered fruits of different kinds, including imported kiwis and avocados, but not the one I was looking for. I finally found it at a weekly haat, a makeshift market where locals from nearby villages gather to sell their produce.
“The availability of indigenous, local fruits has definitely decreased over time,” says Dharindra Nath Hazarika, head of the horticulture department at BN College of Agriculture under Assam Agriculture University. “There is a lack of research and documentation on this subject, so we don’t know the exact magnitude of the decline.”
This loss is not restricted to just one region.
In the neighbouring state of Meghalaya, for instance, local communities say they are observing that local fruits that once grew abundantly in people’s homesteads are now less commonly seen.
Pius Ranee, executive director of North East Society for Agroecology Support, agrees. “Many traditional fruits, vegetables, and edible plants once commonly found in homesteads and villages are becoming less common. Older generations often recall a greater diversity of food plants around homes, fields and forests...