Every morning, Baisa, a forest-dwelling Karbi woman, gets up at 4 am to forage fresh wild edible plants and insects from the forest. At the market in Diphu, Baisa is able to sell some of the surplus wild vegetables for about Rs 100. There is an increasing demand for wild foods like Alpinia nigra (locally known as tara) in Diphu, where the stem pith of tara sells for Rs 15 to Rs 20 for a bundle. It is profitable to sell tara, because women can make extra money for a day, but women like Baisa walk back and forth from the market, to save the money that traveling 10 km in an auto rickshaw to Diphu would cost them.

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