The project supports Adivasi youth training on wild foods from women experts at the Forest Food Field School in Adukkam, India. The scholars will learn to identify, document and harvest nutritious food from the wild, prepare meals from forest resources, and grow and maintain their own food gardens for food resilience. For as little as $15, help preserve this traditional knowledge from Adivasi elders so that the youth are able to carry on the old tradition of healthy diets from the forest.
Forest foods from the wild are often neglected due to the lack of knowledge on identification and harvest techniques, processing, cooking/recipes, and the nutritive values of these plant foods. Such knowledge gaps deprive people of freely available foods that can complement what they buy in the market and add essential nutritive elements to their diets. Youth and elders in villages play an important role in strengthening these traditions. Interactions between generations need to be facilitated.
The Forest Food Field School addresses the knowledge gap of youth and locals on wild foods through capacity building workshops on wild foods documentation, management, and preparation. The forest food gardens in the Adukkam nursery will function as demonstration plots and will include sections on medicinal plants and lesser known forest foods. Seed exchanges between gardens will be made possible for biodiversity conservation. The youth will look at their landscape with a more appreciative view.
Beyond the training, the youth can apply the knowledge they learned in setting up their own wild food gardens and mentoring other youth to cultivate their own gardens. Youth and elders' relationship in villages will be improved. The exchanges of ideas and knowledge will contribute to the rejuvenation of forest food traditions among Adivasi communities who have been on the verge of losing such knowledge due to difficult access to forests, modern education and the intrusion of mainstream foods.
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