By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 26 Nov: A webinar on ‘Potential and Prospects of Value Addition in Wild Edibles’ was jointly organised today by the Chemistry & Bioprospecting Division and Forest Pathology Discipline, Forest Protection Division, Forest Research Institute, here, today. More than 60 participants including scientists, technical staff, and research scholars of the FRI; representatives of Krishivan Doon (P) Ltd., Dehradun; Doon Eagle Organics (P), Ltd, Dehradun; Han Agrocare, Dehradun; RK Industries, Dehradun; Jaunsar Organics, Sahiya, Dehradun; Godavari Gramodhyog, Bageshwar; Bagwan Gramodhyog Samiti, Shyampur, Dehradun; Diamond Shiksha Prachar Samiti, Dehradun; mushroom growers and aspiring entrepreneurs joined the programme.
The Director General, ICFRE, Arun Singh Rawat inaugurated the event and stressed upon the need for large-scale cultivation of mushrooms and value addition of wild edibles including fruits and mushrooms owing to their high nutrient and medicinal potential and socio-economic and environmental benefits. Dr Rajdeo Rai, ex-Chief Editor, Mushroom Research, Solan (HP), and entrepreneurs such as Gursharan Bajwa, MD of Doon Eagle Pvt Ltd, Pramod Chaurasiya, Director, Krishi Van Doon Pvt Ltd were the special invitees. They shared their experiences, commercial products and ventures with the participants. Benefits of mushroom consumption, important edible and medicinal mushrooms and their cultivation techniques; value addition of wild edible fruits and mushrooms and preservation and storage of edible mushrooms were discussed. Experiences of the mushroom growers, entrepreneurs and NGOs were also shared with the participants.
Dr YC Tripathi and Dr VK Varshney from the Chemistry & Bioprospecting Division, Dr Amit Pandey, and Dr Manoj Kumar from Forest Pathology Discipline were the resource persons from FRI. The webinar ended with a vote of thanks proposed by Dr YC Tripathi, Head, Chemistry & Bioprospecting Division, FRI.
More than 100 participants joined the training programme. Online live demonstration of edible and medicinal mushroom cultivation was also done.