{"id":43870,"date":"2022-04-25T14:15:42","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T05:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2022\/apr\/25\/tuber-man-of-kerala-climate-change-key-indian-food-security-aoe"},"modified":"2022-04-25T14:15:42","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T05:15:42","slug":"the-tuber-man-of-kerala-on-a-quest-to-champion-indias-rare-and-indigenous-crops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=43870","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The tuber man of Kerala\u2019 on a quest to champion India\u2019s rare and indigenous crops"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Shaji NM has devoted his life to collecting and farming tubers such as yam, cassava and taro, and promoting them across the country<\/p>\n<p>Known as \u201cthe tuber man of Kerala\u201d, Shaji NM has travelled throughout India over the past two decades, sometimes inspecting bushes in tribal villages, at other times studying the ground of forests closer to home among the green hills of Wayanad in Kerala. His one purpose, and what earned him his title, is to collect rare indigenous varieties of tuber crops.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople call me crazy, but it\u2019s for the love of tubers that I do what I do,\u201d says Shaji. \u201cI have developed an emotional relationship with the tuber. When we did not have anything to eat, we had tubers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2022\/apr\/25\/tuber-man-of-kerala-climate-change-key-indian-food-security-aoe\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shaji NM has devoted his life to collecting and farming tubers such as yam, cassava and taro, and promoting them across the countryKnown as \u201cthe tuber man of Kerala\u201d, Shaji NM has travelled throughout India over the past two decades, sometimes inspecti&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3035,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[737,2331,456,464,65,653,1149,59,62,1674,299,79,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-climate-crisis","category-conservation","category-endangered-species","category-environment","category-farming","category-food-security","category-global-development","category-india","category-plants","category-science","category-society","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3035"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43871,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43870\/revisions\/43871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}