The forgotten fruit

Look at the fruit on the jackfruit tree / Hail, Radha, Rukmini, Sita Devi! / Look at the fruit on the guava tree / Hail, Radha, Rukmini, Sita Devi! / Look at the fruit on the jamun tree / Hail, Radha, Rukmini, Sita Devi! Song of the Soligas of the Biligiri Ranga Hills of southern Karnataka. The poem lists the fruit they collect from the forest, in appreciation of God’s gift to humankind.

As we celebrate this year’s International Day of Forests with the theme of ‘forests and health’, it is pertinent to learn from the experiences of the indigenous communities of India, whose relationship with their natural habitat–the forests–has been undergoing a fundamental shift. An indigenous community we have studied are the Soligas of southern Karnataka, who have lived in the forests of Biligiri Rangana Betta (aka B R Hills) for millennia. The dense forests provided them with a home as well as most of their food. Their diet was rich and varied, and included a variety of yams and tubers, green leafy vegetables, fruits and berries, millets and other grains, honey, and a range of animal protein. Their traditional recipes incorporated complex combinations of this forest produce.

Yet, over time, the relationship of the Soligas to their forest home has transformed: after B R Hills was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1974, the Soligas no longer have easy access to the forests; and due to changes in forest ecology, including the proliferation of invasive species such as the lantana, there has been a dramatic decline in the abundance of native fruit-yielding trees such as gooseberries.

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As a result, their food system no longer centres around the forest, nor does their diet consist largely of foods sourced from the woods. The impact of this change on the health and sense of well-being of the Soligas has been profound.

With their traditional sources of food becoming less accessible, the Soligas are largely turning either to government food programmes or the market. For decades now, the approach of the Government of India towards addressing food and nutrition security is through food support for the most vulnerable, largely through the provision of whole grains or cooked food, consisting largely of whole grains. Driven by the Green Revolution, this has meant a huge expansion in the production and distribution of rice and wheat, through the Public Distribution System (PDS) and other food supplementation programmes such as the Midday Meal Scheme (MDMS) for school children, and through the cooked meals provided for children, up to the age of age of six, at the Anganwadi Centres run by the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS).

However, there is growing evidence that a diet largely composed of whole grain can be seriously unhealthy, contributing for example to the rising epidemic of obesity and diabetes. Researchers are increasingly discovering the benefits of forest and tree-grown food and their potential for both forming the basis for  healthy and nutritionally diverse diets and promoting environmental sustainability. Beyond the nutritional value of forest produce – fruits, nuts, greens, insects, wild meat, roots, rhizomes, honey – there is also a critical role that forests play in addressing the broader sense of health, that is, well-being.

The notion of well-being is already subsumed within the WHO’s definition of health as being a state of ‘physical, mental and social well-being’, and this is reflected in von Hertzen, Hanski and Haahtela’s ‘Biodiversity Hypothesis’, where they posit the idea that proximity to forests and biodiversity actually stimulates human immunoregulatory circuits and reduces the occurrence of inflammatory diseases.

While they ascribe this to the beneficial effects of being exposed to varied microbiota, Rao Seshadri et al have hypothesised that this sense of well-being or ‘flourishing’ of indigenous communities could be tied back to the extent that they continue to have access to their forests and traditional food systems. They found that Soliga communities who live closest to the forest, with the greatest access to forest-based produce and enjoying a largely traditional diet, experience the greatest sense of flourishing, measured by their sense of self-worth and living an authentic life, and connected to both their people and their environment.

In an era when there is increasing talk of micronutrient supplementation of foods–iron in rice, Vit D in milk, iodine in salt and so on–as well as calls to increase the quantum of food aid through national food support programmes, it is important to keep in mind the accessibility and diversity of indigenous food systems. These systems rely critically on the surrounding forests; and thus the policy implications for restoring the forest as a source of food rich in both macro- and micronutrients is clear. Reviving forest-based diets could generate a synergistic effect across multiple SDGs–from alleviating poverty, supporting better health, and moving towards gender equity to promoting sustainable production and consumption, and finally, catalysing climate-resilient and nature positive food systems. If we are to heed the call of the government’s recently launched Mission LiFE, to ‘encourage use of millets in food and indigenous herbs and medicinal plants for nutrition and well-being’, we need to rethink the way in which the relationship of indigenous communities to their natural habitat is redefined, and to ensure that forests are valued not only for their capacity to mitigate climate change as carbon sinks, but also for their positive impact on human health and well-being.

(Dhanya Bhaskar is chairperson, Centre for Policy Studies, and associate professor, Ecosystems and Environment Management at Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal; Shreelata Rao Seshadri is professor and director, Ramalingaswami Centre on Equity and Social Determinants of Health, PHFI, Bengaluru)