Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2020) 9(10): 2873-2879 2873 Review Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2020.910.346 The Potential of Underutilized Vegetables of Assam as a Source of Nutrition - A Review Sanchayeeta Gohain 1* , M. Neog 2 and Sanjoy Borthakur 1 1 Subject Matter Specialist (Horticulture), KVK, Tinsukia, India 2 Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, India *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction With the annual population growth rate of 1.8%, the demand for food, feed and bio fuel in the world is growing day by day. It is projected that to cater the food demand of whole world, the production of agriculture has to increase by 70% by the year 2050. Till date, there are estimated 75000 species of edible plants of which interestingly only 30% are being utilized to provide 90% of the world’s food. Therefore, there is a huge potential to explore the underutilized crops as food source. In the year 2017-18 from an area of 10249 hector, India produces 18, 7474 MT of vegetables and this amazing achievement was contributed by only few major vegetables like brinjal, cauliflower, cabbage, peas, onion etc. Though the underutilized vegetables are always been a part of peoples everyday diet, but underutilized vegetables has not been given much consideration to explore commercially. India has the advantage of having a varied agro climatic situation which allows to grow more than 60 cultivated and about 30 lesser known vegetable crops. Even International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 9 Number 10 (2020) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com The underutilized indigenous vegetables are rich source of, protein, essential vitamins, micronutrients and other phytonutrients etc. and many of these vegetables have a better nutritional value compared to other known vegetables like tomato or cabbage. But the potential of these vegetables are not explored commercially. Various underutilized vegetables like Water spinach, Common Purslane, Indian spinach, tree bean, winged bean etc. are embedded with vitamins, amino acids, minerals, protein, dietary fibre etc. have high antioxidant activities and hence can effectively address the issues related to mal nutrition and nutritional security. Apart from creating stability to the eco system these underutilized vegetables can be a help in increasing the economy of the rural poor. Keywords Underutilized vegetables, Essential vitamins, Proteins, Micronutrients, Livelihood improvement Accepted: 20 September 2020 Available Online: 10 October 2020 Article Info