Breeding Potentials of Wild Forest Rattans Palms to Ensure Food Security

Nontimber forest products (NTFPs) are often regarded to be a “Silver bullet.” Attention on vital conservation and sustainable development of these assets are highly appreciated to boost the indigenous livelihoods by many researchers. And as such, rattan canes have been recognized as one of the world’s most valuable NTFPs. Apart from commercial cane-ware products, rattan resources are yet to be explored in terms of their food value, therapeutic, medicinal properties and most pivotal is its breeding aspects of traits, therefore, research aiming at crop improvement program through conventional and nonconventional approaches like tissue culture for mass propagation, application of various breeding methods for further plant traits selection, bio-fortification for new food and medicinal plants through selective breeding and systematic molecular investigation of the genomic information of potential wild rattan resources will provide a foothold for further studies and investigations of its food and biochemical composition. This chapter sketches the recent findings of rattans palms on morphological and taxonomical aspects, economical importance, pollination behavior, medicinal and food values, practices of agriculture, and nontimber forest foods management under an outline of breeding approaches which can be useful in future traits improvement program in rattans for food security and mass commercialization.