STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Prof Yash Pal Sharma from the Department of Botany, University of Jammu, delivered a keynote address during the inaugural function at the three-day International e-Conference on Innovative Research Trends in Life Sciences (ICIRTLS-2020) organized by the Life Science Department of Shri Shivaji College of Arts, Commerce and Science, Akola (Maharashtra) in collaboration with the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA), Amravati Chapter from December 3 to 5, 2020.
While delivering his talk titled “Alternative Food Resources: Wild Edible Mushrooms of North West Himalaya of Jammu and Kashmir’, Prof Sharma began with the present status of wild mushrooms in the NW Himalayan region and showed that how these are consistently playing an indispensable role in sustaining the livelihood and economy of the natives of the Himalayan twin Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
He also outlined the general aspects of fungal characteristics and their role in the evolution, growth and proliferation of all plants including the economically important food crops and forests ecosystems through their mycorrhizal and rhizospheric associations.
‘Amongst the vast wealth of fungi, mushrooms connect humans to human sociability, valuation of nature and also connect people to their neighbouring forests for non-timber forest products, especially when such connections have been broken resulting in the eradication of forest goods, socio-environmental degradation and, occasionally, land desertion’, told the learned mycologist of the Jammu.
Adding further, Prof Sharma opined that several key problems of malnutrition, diminishing quality of health, unemployment and increasing environmental deterioration can be solved by the innovations in consumption pattern, domestication and conservation of wild edible and medicinal mushrooms.
Concluding his address, Prof Sharma said that its time to co-ordinate and collaborate for making India the Atmanirbhar, self-reliant and the present challenges need to be converted into opportunities.
The conference was attended by more than 300 registered researchers from India and other parts of the world.
