Nutritious underutilized species
Taro
(Colocasia esculenta L.)
Botanical framework Family: Araceae Subfamily: Aroideae Genus: Colocasia Scientific name: Colocasia esculenta L.
Common names Taro, cocoyam, dasheen, elephant ears, macabo, mukhi kochu, inhame, yùtou, wuh táu, Rukau, satoimo, kolokass, colocasia, dalo, kilkass, ala, gabi, toran, aroei, khoai môn, ô-å.
Brief introduction to the species Colocasia esculenta, commonly known as Taro, is a staple vegetable crop that has been used as food for over 9,000 years, making it one of the world’s oldest food crops. It is used as a source of protein, starch, and vitamins. It is toxic when raw but edible when cooked. It can also be used for medicinal purposes. It can be found in Southeast Asia but now has spread throughout the world, becoming a very important crop in Asia, Pacific, Africa, and the Caribbean. As a crop, it remains mostly under the control of local communities, rarely being traded on a global scale.
What are neglected and underutilized species? The term ‘NUS’ – standing for neglected and underutilized species – refers to a category of non-commodity cultivated and wild species, which are part of a large agrobiodiversity portfolio today falling into disuse for a variety of agronomic, genetic, economic, social and cultural factors. NUS are traditionally grown by farmers in their centres of diversity, where they support nutrition security and other livelihood goals of local communities while contributing to meet their socio-cultural needs and traditional uses. Until recently these species have been largely ignored by research and development, becoming less competitive than well established major crops and losing gradually their diversity and associated traditional knowledge.
It has edible underground stems called corms, which are wrapped in scale-like leaves and have bud-like smaller corms, called cormels, coming off of them. Above ground, there are other leaves which can also be eaten.
Taro is an extremely diverse food. The corms can be baked, roasted, or boiled and have a bland, slightly savory flavor when cooked alone, but are usually eaten with other ingredients. Taro can be made with meat, gravy, or many other ingredients like vegetables. It can be fried, preserved, dried, made into flour, grated, made into a stew, or consumed in many other ways in many different countries. It is often used in many traditional cultural dishes.
Main use and benefits
Nutritional value
How is it generally consumed?
What is its nutritional value?
The main use of Colocasia esculenta is as a vegetable and when the leaves or corms (underground stems) are eaten after baking, roasting, or boiling them. Its leaves and petioles can be dried and preserved and eaten in times of food scarcity. It is highly nutritious as well.
Taro root is rich in complex carbohydrates and is a primary source of starch. The nutritional value of taro root is similar to potatoes. Taro root has very little fat. One cup serving has 7 g of dietary fiber which is about 27% of the daily recommended amount.
One cup serving has 11% of the vitamin C daily value, 19% of vitamin E and 22% of vitamin B6 (all critically important for the immune system). One cup serving also has 10% of the daily value of magnesium and phosphorus, 13% of copper, 18% of potassium and 30% of manganese.
Growing and harvesting How easy is it to grow? How is it harvested? Taro grows easily without many fungicides or pesticides because it naturally contains several natural phytochemicals to defend itself. These also act as defenses against grazing animals by giving it an acrid taste Los pequeños when raw. It can also be grown in diverse environments. It will grow either in water or on land. It is one of the firstagricultores producen la crops to grow on soil that has been fallow for a long mayoría de los alimentos. period of time. About 48 days after planting, there is a period of rapid Nuestra visión es la de growth for about 100 days, but corm growth continues un mundo en el cual for even longer. If too much time passes after planting before harvesting, the corms can start to rot and lose drylas comunidades de mass. Because there is so much variability in taro, there pequeños agricultores de is no real specification with respect to time about when tolos países en desarrollo harvest it. However, depending on the definition of crop son prósperas y maturity used, plants can be harvested between 5 and 13 months after planting, and in certain parts of the worldsostenibles. where taro is grown regularly, it is harvested between 9 and 11 months after planting. Harvesting is generally done by uprooting the plant to retrieve the important corms.
Productivity How much will it produce? Under farm conditions, taro productivity is low. Its productivity only ranges from 1.4-6 t/ha. However, at certain research stations, yields of 50-75 t/ha can be attained. Corm dry matter yield has been shown to yield 6.5 t/ha. World production of taro in 2007 was almost 12 million metric tonnes. 9.5 million tonnes of that were produced in Africa, and 2 million were produced in Asia.
Preserving and processing Can it be preserved, keeping its value? Postharvest storage rot of taro can cause losses as high as 85% after only 2 weeks of storage. Corms can easily be infected, but storing it in cool temperatures seems to help for a certain amount of time on pathogen-resistant varieties. After harvest, taro corms are cleaned by water and hand scrapers. Drying the skin of the corms increases shelfand storage-life.
Other uses What else can be done with it? Aside from being cooked and eaten like a potato, taro can be made into a baker’s flour used for decoration. It is added into poi, a traditional edible paste from Hawaii. It can be grated into pudding and eaten that way as well. Because taro varieties can be different colors, some of them are used for different symbolic purposes. For example, one, that bears the same color pattern as a particular type of fish, is sometimes used as an offering in place of that fish in ceremonies.
Culture
REFERENCES: Del Rosario, C. S., M. K. Palomar, et al. (1997). “Nature of postharvest disease resistance in taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott).” Philippine, Journal of Crop Science (Philippines). Goenaga, R. (1995). “Accumulation And Partitioning Of DryMatter In Taro [Colocasia-Esculenta (L) Schott].” Annals Of Botany 76(4): 337-341. Goenaga, R. (1996). “Taro yield and dry matter distribution under upland conditions in Puerto Rico.” African Crop Science Journal 4(3): 289-294. Greenwell, A. B. H. (1947). “Taro—with special reference to its culture and uses in Hawaii.” Economic Botany 1(3): 276-289. Lu, H. Y. L., C. T. Chan, et al. (2001). “Seasonal variation in linear increase of taro harvest index explained by growing degree days.” Agronomy Journal 93(5): 1136. Miyasaka, S. C., R. M. Ogoshi, et al. (2003). “Site and planting date effects on taro growth: comparison with aroid model predictions.” Agronomy Journal 95(3): 545-557. Nair, R., T. Kalariya, et al. (2005). “Antibacterial activity of some selected Indian medicinal flora.” Turk J Biol 29(2005): 41-47. Nurtama, B. and J. Lin (2009). “Effects of Process Variables on the Physical Properties of Taro Extrudate.” World Journal of Dairy & Food Sciences 4(2): 154-159. Rao, V. R., D. Hunter, et al. “Ethnobotany and global diversity of taro.” The Global Diversity of Taro: 1. Singh, U., R. B. Matthews, et al. (1998). “Modeling growth and development of root and tuber crops.” Understanding options for agricultural production 7: 129. http://www.agriculture.org.fj/_resources/main/files/Issue_4__ Post_Harvest_ Handling_of_Dalo.pdf http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/inpho/docs/Post_ Harvest_ Compendium_-_Edible_aroids.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colocasia_esculenta
Are there any specific taboos, specific cultural adaptations, historical perspective?
PHOTOS:
Because taro has been around for such a long time, it has been used by many cultures all over the world. The Hawaiians use it as a ceremonial offering. The Japanese adopted it quickly because it is easy to grow, and some say that it influenced their later culinary tastes, like sticky rice. Some cultures believe taro to be an ancestor of the current indigenous people.
Page 3: Peter Matthews
Cover: Bioversity International/D. Hunter
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