{"id":87891,"date":"2025-08-16T19:22:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T19:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/87891\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T19:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T19:22:11","slug":"study-reveals-benefits-of-traditional-himalayan-crops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/87891\/","title":{"rendered":"Study reveals benefits of traditional Himalayan crops"},"content":{"rendered":"

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image:\u00a0<\/p>\n

A focal group with farmers conducted in the fields during the September 2022 harvest season in Pangmo village in the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. (Image courtesy of Harman Jaggi)<\/p>\n

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Credit: Image courtesy of Harman Jaggi<\/p>\n

In the high-elevation desert region of the Trans-Himalayas, most people farm for a living. In the 1980s,\u00a0they largely transitioned from subsistence-based to market-oriented production of commercial crops, such as green peas (Pisum sativum L.), they could sell to other states in India.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For their own communities and monasteries, however, some farmers still cultivate foods with a 3,000-year legacy in the area, including barley (Hordeum vulgare) and a local variety of black peas that lacks a scientific name. Favored for nutrition and sustained energy, these black peas are an integral part of traditional recipes, such as\u00a0soups and hot drinks. In a new study\u00a0published<\/a>\u00a0Aug. 15 in\u00a0Science Advances, Stanford researchers examined the genetic diversity, ecological resilience, and dietary value of the black peas for the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack peas and barley are intimately tied to the cultural, religious, and social life in the Trans-Himalayan region.\u00a0That they are also climate resilient is what makes them so exciting,\u201d said the study\u2019s lead author,\u00a0Harman Jaggi<\/a>, PhD \u201924. \u201cOne of our findings was\u00a0what the local farmers knew all along \u2013 black peas are more ecologically resilient and have higher protein levels, as compared to the introduced cash crop green peas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scientists generally agree that peas, first grown around 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, have one domesticated and one wild species.\u00a0But the new study, which provided the first whole genome sequencing data for the black peas, suggests that they form distinct genetic clusters, \u201chighlighting a complex cultural and environmental selection over thousands of years,\u201d Jaggi said.<\/p>\n

The research team examined whether, as compared to green peas, the black peas were better adapted to the local climate, especially as the region faces significantly decreased winter precipitation due to climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Across sites at three different elevations and with varied watering treatments, black peas showed a higher probability of survival and more successful reproductive traits. This finding corroborated anecdotes from farmers, who said black peas are easier and less water intensive to grow than green peas.<\/p>\n

The researchers also drew up a nutritional profile of black peas in collaboration with the\u00a0Central Food Technological Research Institute<\/a>\u00a0in India. Compared to green peas, black peas are richer in protein \u2013 boasting 21% protein per 100 grams \u2013 and high in minerals like magnesium, calcium, and iron. The peas are also a significant source of fiber and vitamins C, B1, and B3.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Promise of black peas<\/p>\n

Jaggi first visited the sparsely populated Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh, India, in the\u00a0Trans-Himalayas\u00a0years ago to study snow leopards,\u00a0a significant tourism draw\u00a0for the area. While climbing the steep and rocky slopes above the tree line, she noted the lightweight black pea and barley powder that her local hosts ground and offered with tea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would sustain us for hours,\u201d said Jaggi, who conducted research for the study with her\u00a0advisor,\u00a0Shripad Tuljapurkar<\/a>,\u00a0professor of biology in the Stanford\u00a0School of Humanities and Sciences<\/a>\u00a0(H&S), and with support from the\u00a0Sustainability Accelerator<\/a>\u00a0at the\u00a0Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability<\/a>. \u201cAnecdotally, local people would say black peas are very nutritional and less vulnerable to vagaries of climate change. But with our collaborator\u00a0Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi<\/a>\u00a0from the\u00a0Nature Conservation Foundation<\/a>, we noted that there was little science backing these claims. We were motivated to fill this gap by designing a study from a multipronged and multidisciplinary perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaggi returned to the remote valley and interviewed over 300 residents about traditional agricultural practices, in particular, farming black peas \u2013 called\u00a0sanmoh nako\u00a0or\u00a0dhoopchum\u00a0in Tibetan. While only 10% of the families she talked with were growing them, Jaggi learned that many more would like to if there were interested buyers and science behind the crop\u2019s value. Many of these farmers earn as little as $2,300 per year, according to 2011 census data.<\/p>\n

Following the 2022 interviews, Jaggi and her colleagues collaborated with three separate villages to set up field study experiments on working farms for the 2023 growing season.<\/p>\n

\u201cLocal farmers, who have generations of knowledge, gave crucial input on the experiment and co-authored the paper,\u201d Jaggi said. \u201cGrowing practices that might work for green peas, say in the floodplains of India, would not have worked for black peas in the\u00a0adverse\u00a0climatic conditions and cold, dry desert ecosystem of the Trans-Himalayas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Value and recognition<\/p>\n

The study authors emphasize that black peas could be a valuable genetic reservoir\u00a0as a potential wild relative\u00a0that could enhance other crops, equipping them to withstand increasing heat and drought stress.<\/p>\n

They also recommend the Trans-Himalayan agricultural systems for recognition within the\u00a0Nationally or Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (NIAHS or GIAHS).\u00a0The landscape boasts exceptional cultural richness and biodiversity, including carnivores such as snow leopards, wolves, and red foxes; wild herbivores such as Asiatic ibex and blue sheep; and many species of flowering plants. This United Nations declaration could help to safeguard the region\u2019s environment and farming practices and stimulate a market for black peas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis requires more research on understudied and lesser-known crops as well as integrating traditional agricultural practices,\u201d Jaggi said. \u201cI want these findings to go back to the farmers so they can diversify their\u00a0crops and not incur huge losses from continuing to grow more water-intensive green peas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The authors hope future research will create a long-term field dataset on black peas and that their integration of traditional ecological knowledge will inspire future scientific studies. There are many benefits of that approach for local food security and global conservation efforts as climate change intensifies, they wrote in their study.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis work is path-breaking in many respects,\u201d said Tuljapurkar, the Dean and Virginia Morrison Professor in Population Studies in H&S and the study\u2019s senior author.\u00a0\u201cI think our results are promising for the study population and also suggest many generalizations and extensions to other populations that are balanced between traditional and modern lifestyles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stanford research scientist Katherine Solari is also a co-author of this paper. Additional co-authors are from the Nature Conservation Foundation, India; the University of California, Berkeley; the CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar Program; the Snow Leopard Trust; and the CIFAR Fellow in Future Flourishing Program. Tuljapurkar is also a member of\u00a0Stanford Bio-X<\/a>\u00a0and an affiliate of the\u00a0Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This research was funded by the Nature Conservation Foundation, India; the\u00a0Sustainability Accelerator<\/a>\u00a0at the\u00a0Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability<\/a>; and the\u00a0King Center on Global Development<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Article Title<\/p>\n

Biocultural vulnerability of traditional crops in the Indian Trans Himalaya<\/p>\n

Article Publication Date<\/p>\n

15-Aug-2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"image:\u00a0 A focal group with farmers conducted in the fields during the September 2022 harvest season in Pangmo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[200,79],"class_list":["post-87891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-genetics","tag-genetics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}