Studies on nutritionally rich indigenous fruit resources of North East India and their value addition

The North Eastern Region of India being one of the eighteen hot spots of the world is rich in diversity of indigenous fruits and contains more than one third of the country's total fruit diversity. Indigenous fruits are known to play an important role in food and nutritional supplement of rural community from time immemorial. These fruits are hardy and can be grown under stress and adverse climatic conditions and are known for their medicinal, therapeutic and nutritive values. Although these fruits contain almost all known vitamins and many essential minerals, they are generally not found in the commercial orchards. Many of the indigenous fruits remained underexploited due to the lack of awareness of their potential, market demand and knowledge of value addition. There is great potentialities of various value added products such as jam, pickles, chutney, squashes, dried fruits, pulp etc. from these indigenous fruits. Therefore, organised processing, value addition and export of these value added products would provide an opportunity to consumers all over the world to enjoy these nutritious indigenous fruits and also to ensure the food and nutritional security of tribal and rural population of the region and to enhance the income of farmers.