The dietary backdrop is sobering. Roughly 35 percent of Indians identify as vegetarian, yet even among meat, fish, and egg consumers, protein intake falls well short of both national recommendations and the EAT-Lancet planetary health targets. Rice and wheat contribute more than half of daily caloric intake, and their protein content is modest, at approximately 7 and 12 grams per 100 grams respectively. This cereal-heavy pattern is linked to persistent protein-energy malnutrition, with prevalence among children under five reported between 18 and 56 percent in various studies. The review’s authors argue that simply exhorting people to eat more protein is insufficient; the food system itself must supply affordable, culturally familiar, protein-dense options that do not depend on irrigation, expensive inputs, or fragile supply chains.

To identify candidates, the researchers conducted a structured literature search on Google Scholar using keywords spanning underutilized crops, indigenous foods, neglected species, and protein-rich plants, supplemented by reference-list screening. Species were admitted only if they met a battery of criteria: at least 15 percent protein on a dry-weight basis, adaptability across India’s arid, semi-arid, and tropical zones, multipurpose utility such as livestock feed, green manure, or biological nitrogen fixation, and compatibility with low-input farming. The 15 percent cutoff deliberately exceeds wheat’s protein content, ensuring shortlisted crops meaningfully outperform staples. Out of an estimated 25,000 edible underutilized species in India, 28 crops passed the screen. Legumes ranged from 17 to 35 grams of protein per 100 grams of dry seed, leafy greens from 16 to 28 grams per 100 grams of dried leaves, and edible seeds and pods from 20 to 25 grams per 100 grams of flour.

The agronomic case for these species is compelling. Jack bean and sword bean tolerate the marginal soils of arid and semi-arid zones, while winged bean adapts to acidic, well-drained soils and withstands drought, temperature extremes, and pests. Velvet bean thrives in warm, high-rainfall regions and fixes atmospheric nitrogen. Horse gram, cowpea, field bean, rice bean, adzuki bean, and kidney bean are distributed across southern, northeastern, and Himalayan zones, each matched to local rainfall and soil conditions. Leafy species such as drumstick, or moringa, grow widely across peninsular India, while others like jaiur, jarem, and water celery occupy specialized niches in the Darjeeling Himalayas, northeastern states, and Manipur. Many of these plants fit naturally into home gardens, intercropping systems, and agroforestry, offering year-round protein access without displacing staple production.

To understand where each crop currently sits in India’s food landscape, the team triangulated three independent evidence streams. Culinary documentation drew on regional cookbooks, food blogs, YouTube channels, and cultural archives, yielding 207 unique recipes representing 15 countries. Market mapping scanned major e-commerce platforms including Amazon, Flipkart, and IndiaMART, alongside niche organic and specialty sites, for raw, processed, powdered, and value-added products. Innovation mapping searched academic databases for applied food science, capturing 101 studies on germination, fermentation, extrusion, flour formulation, and product development. Cross-referencing the three streams revealed a highly uneven picture: only a handful of species, notably moringa, horse gram, field bean, kidney bean, and adzuki bean, appear simultaneously in kitchens, markets, and laboratories.

Moringa stands out as the exemplar of full translation. Once a backyard vegetable, it now appears globally in fortified bakery products, noodles, beverages, and supplements, a trajectory the authors attribute to its convergence across all three domains. Horse gram and adzuki bean retain strong culinary roots while entering composite flours, extruded snacks, and fortified weaning foods. By contrast, velvet bean, perilla, and pot cassia have taken a “supplement-first” route, marketed as powders, capsules, and extracts rather than everyday foods. Winged bean, field bean, and sword bean remain “culinary but not commercial,” embedded in regional diets but absent from value-added formats. Wild species such as vegetable fern, dogal tree leaves, and water celery barely register in any stream, reflecting localized consumption, ecological scarcity, or safety concerns.

The technical literature reveals consistent processing strategies. Partial substitution of legume flours or leaf powders at 5 to 25 percent into cereal products reliably raises protein and micronutrient density, but sensory acceptance declines when substitution exceeds roughly 20 percent, underscoring the need for formulation optimization. Germination, fermentation, extrusion, enzymatic pretreatment, and protein isolation all improve digestibility and reduce anti-nutritional compounds such as phytic acid, glucosinolates, and phenolics. Documented successes include moringa-fortified biscuits and noodles, lablab-enriched breads and macaroni, velvet-bean weaning foods, and winged-bean and adzuki-based tofu, tempeh, and protein isolates. Yet most innovations remain at laboratory or pilot scale, with few studies addressing shelf life, cost-effectiveness, or consumer segmentation. Notably, India accounts for roughly half of documented innovations, while Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Africa contribute about 40 percent, and Western contexts about 7 percent, revealing an Indian strength in culinary integration but a gap in industrial-scale processing research.

The barriers to scaling are as much social and institutional as they are biochemical. A persistent stigma labels many traditional vegetables as “poor people’s food,” eroding demand precisely as urbanization fragments the oral culinary knowledge that sustained them. Farmers often lack access to quality seed, reflecting weak seed systems and extension services that have historically prioritized yield-focused cereals and major pulses. Regulatory ambiguity surrounds novel and medicinally associated species, and quality standards are inconsistent. Meanwhile, detailed amino acid profiles and protein digestibility data, essential for estimating true dietary contribution, remain largely uncharacterized for most shortlisted species. The authors identify these knowledge gaps as a critical constraint on both product development and nutrition policy.

In response, the study proposes a multi-pathway framework linking six domains: product development, culinary promotion, ingredient supply chains, public nutrition programs, education and behavior change, and research-policy integration. Under the product pathway, food technology institutes, small and medium enterprises, and start-ups would convert locally accepted crops into fortified staples, instant mixes, and extruded snacks. Culinary promotion would enlist chefs, culinary schools, and state nutrition missions to normalize consumption through recognizable dishes, such as folding moringa leaves into palak paneer. Supply-chain development would engage farmer producer organizations and processing hubs to aggregate and standardize flours, while public procurement through FSSAI, the Integrated Child Development Services, and the Mid-Day Meal Scheme could institutionalize demand, with women’s self-help groups as suppliers. Protein literacy campaigns and clinic-based counselling would complete the demand side, supported by research on amino acid composition, bioavailability, sensory acceptance, and varietal improvement.

The review’s ultimate argument is that protein security in India is a systemic problem that cannot be solved by agronomy or food technology alone. The 28 crops it catalogues already possess the nutritional density, agroecological resilience, and cultural embeddedness needed to matter; what they lack is coordinated investment in seed systems, processing, regulation, and consumer familiarity. By aligning traditional knowledge with modern food science and linking smallholder production with institutional demand, the authors argue, India can move these neglected species from the margins of subsistence to the core of sustainable food systems, advancing national nutrition goals alongside Sustainable Development Goals 2 and 12. The opportunity, they conclude, is timely: climate change is already stressing cereal monocultures, and crops evolved to thrive on marginal land with minimal water may prove among the most resilient assets in the national food portfolio.

Subject of Research: Underutilized high protein crops in India and pathways for scaling their contribution to protein security

Article Title: Underutilized high protein crops in India and pathways for scaling their contribution to protein security

Article References: Tamma, V., Kumar, P. R., & Goh, E. (2026). Underutilized high protein crops in India and pathways for scaling their contribution to protein security. Discover Agriculture, 4(1), Article 284. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44279-026-00751-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44279-026-00751-9

Keywords: Underutilized, high, protein, crops, India, pathways, scaling, contribution, security, scientific research

The distinction between macronutrients and micronutrients is central to understanding how soil condition translates into human nutrition. Macronutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium are required in relatively large amounts and are the traditional focus of fertilizer programs. Micronutrients, by contrast, are needed in trace quantities but perform indispensable roles in human physiology. The source evidence identifies seventeen micronutrients relevant to human health, including iron, zinc, iodine, selenium, copper, molybdenum, manganese, and fluoride. Deficiencies of iron and iodine alone can produce anemia, impaired cognitive development, and thyroid disorders, conditions that remain widespread in regions where soils are degraded and diets lack diversity. Because plants acquire these elements from the soil solution, the nutritional quality of food is ultimately a reflection of what the soil can supply.

This pathway helps explain why malnutrition, understood as a deficiency of essential nutrients even when calories are sufficient, may be a larger global problem than undernutrition in terms of the vulnerable population affected. A field can produce abundant cereal grain on a degraded soil, yet that grain may carry lower concentrations of zinc or iron than grain grown on a healthier counterpart. The result is a paradox in which food availability improves while nutritional adequacy stagnates or declines. Addressing this paradox requires attention to the soil processes that govern micronutrient availability, including pH regulation, organic matter dynamics, and the activity of mycorrhizal fungi and other soil organisms that mobilize otherwise inaccessible elements.

The soil microbiome adds another dimension to this nexus. Healthy soils with robust organic matter content host diverse microbial communities that suppress soil-borne pathogens and can reduce the incidence of mycotoxins produced by fungal contaminants. Reduced disease pressure means fewer fungicide and insecticide applications, which in turn lowers pesticide residues in harvested food. There is also emerging interest in the possibility that the soil microbiome influences the human gut microbiome through the food chain, since the microbial and biochemical profile of produce reflects the environment in which it was grown. While this area of research is still developing, it reinforces the One Health premise that the health of soil, plants, and people is indivisible rather than merely analogous.

Clay mineralogy offers a concrete example of how inherent soil properties shape management options. Soils dominated by 1:1 clays, such as kaolinite, have low cation exchange capacity and limited capacity to hold nutrients, whereas 2:1 clays such as smectites have high charge density and large surface areas. Swelling and shrinking behavior in 2:1 clays affects aggregation, aeration, and root penetrability, while low-activity clays in many tropical soils leave smallholder farmers with little inherent nutrient reserve. The evidence notes that low nutrient reserves resulting from low charge density and low external inputs are a primary cause of low yields among resource-poor farmers in the global south. Any strategy for improving crop health in these regions must therefore combine organic and mineral inputs in ways that compensate for inherent mineralogical constraints.

Water dynamics are inseparable from these considerations. The capacity of a soil to hold plant-available water, sometimes described as green water stored in the root zone, determines how crops weather dry periods between rainfall events. Organic matter improves this capacity, as does good aggregation and minimal compaction. Conversely, degraded soils shed water rapidly as runoff, exposing crops to both drought stress during dry spells and inundation during intense storms. The coupled cycling of carbon, nitrogen, water, phosphorus, and sulfur must remain in balance; perturbing one cycle through land misuse inevitably disturbs the others, with consequences for nutrient leaching, greenhouse gas emissions, and water quality downstream.

The four components of soil health identified in the evidence, namely physical, chemical, biological, and ecological, provide a useful framework for diagnosis. Physical health encompasses structure, aggregation, porosity, and resistance to erosion by water and wind. Chemical health covers nutrient reserves, exchange capacity, and the absence of toxicities. Biological health reflects the abundance and diversity of organisms ranging from bacteria and fungi to earthworms. Ecological health describes how these elements function together to deliver ecosystem services. Because most of these components respond to soil organic matter, management practices that build organic matter tend to improve all four dimensions simultaneously, which is why organic matter is often treated as a master indicator of soil condition.

Regenerative agriculture and agroecological principles offer practical routes to this goal. Practices such as cover cropping, diversified rotations, reduced or no tillage, integration of livestock, mulching with crop residues, and agroforestry all contribute biomass carbon to the soil while protecting it from erosion. Leguminous cover crops add biologically fixed nitrogen, reducing dependence on synthetic fertilizers whose production and overuse carry environmental costs. Diverse rotations break pest and disease cycles, lowering pesticide requirements. These practices align with the four components of crop health proposed by Vega and colleagues, namely usefulness, adversities, safety, and autonomy, since they enhance productive usefulness while reducing adversities, improving safety, and increasing farmer autonomy from costly external inputs.

The salutogenic orientation embedded in this framework is worth emphasizing. Rather than defining crop health merely as the absence of pests or deficiencies, a salutogenic perspective asks what factors actively generate and sustain health. Meaningfulness, comprehensiveness, and manageability, borrowed from models of human wellbeing, translate into farming systems that farmers understand, can manage with available resources, and find worthwhile. This has implications for extension and policy: recommendations that ignore farmers’ economic realities and knowledge systems are unlikely to improve crop health at scale, no matter how sound the underlying agronomy.

Policy instruments also have a role. The evidence argues that soil health legislation at state, national, continental, and international levels should explicitly address crop health management and the research and outreach needed to advance it. Such policies should be pro-nature, pro-agriculture, and pro-farmer simultaneously, recognizing that these objectives are complementary rather than competing. Where farmers are compensated for building soil carbon, restoring biodiversity, or improving water quality, the private incentives of individual land managers align with the public benefits of ecosystem services. Conversely, policies that reward yield alone can encourage practices that mine soil fertility and externalize environmental costs.

The regional dimensions of the challenge deserve attention. Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America carry a disproportionate burden of undernutrition, malnutrition, and soil degradation, and they are also regions where smallholder farming dominates. In these settings, even modest improvements in soil organic matter and nutrient supply can produce meaningful gains in yield stability and nutritional quality. Because smallholders often lack access to irrigation and purchased inputs, practices that rely on locally generated biomass and biological nitrogen fixation are particularly appropriate. At the same time, these regions face intensifying pressure from climate change, which raises the value of soil-based water buffering and carbon sequestration as adaptation and mitigation strategies.

Food safety completes the picture. Crops grown in clean environments with minimal agrochemical residues protect consumers from chronic exposure to harmful compounds, while suppression of pathogens and mycotoxins in healthy soils reduces acute risks. Safe, nutritious food supports not only physical health but also mental health and overall wellbeing, according to the evidence reviewed. The quality of the surrounding environment, including water, air, microclimate, and above- and below-ground biodiversity, is improved in parallel, so the benefits of crop health management extend well beyond the field boundary.

Taken together, these threads support a coherent conclusion: crop health is not a narrow agronomic metric but a nexus concept linking soil processes, food composition, environmental quality, and human wellbeing. Managing it well requires treating the soil as a living system whose physical, chemical, biological, and ecological functions can be built up or squandered through everyday decisions. It requires policies that recognize farmers as stewards of ecosystem services, research programs that integrate soil science with human nutrition, and farming systems grounded in ecological principles. The slogan that healthy soils produce healthy crops and healthy people is more than rhetoric; it summarizes a causal chain that science is increasingly able to trace, and that agricultural policy would do well to follow.

Subject of Research: Crop health management for food and nutritional security and soil health

Article Title: Crop health management for food and nutritional security and soil health

Article References: Lal, R. (2026). Crop health management for food and nutritional security and soil health. Crop Health, 4(1), Article 22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44297-026-00083-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44297-026-00083-6

Keywords: Crop, health, management, food, nutritional, security, soil, scientific research