Growing human population, rising per capital income and increasing urbanization are fuelling rapid growth in the demand for food and animal origin in developing countries. India possesses of the largest livestock populations in the world. Contrary to the large population of livestock in India productivity of Indian livestock is low compared to many developing countries.

Khasi tribe is an ancient hill tribe of East and West Khasi Hill districts of Meghalaya in Northeast India. Potato is the most important crop for the tribal farmers. Traditional potato storage structures and methods accords high significance among this tribe owing to the semi-perishable nature of the potatoes, the need of the farmers to store potatoes for seed as well as table purpose, and non-existence of cold storage facilities in these districts.

Farmers' indigenous method of management of potato blight by selecting the appropriate varieties as per the production situation characteristics in the existing constrained conditions in the Meghalaya hills for their benefit is a successful example of informal research and large-scale application of the results in the real field conditions.

Farmers' traditional methods for managing the potato late blight in the Meghalaya hills are successful examples of ecological disease management and an established outcome of traditional experimentations. Such farmers' wisdom ought to be given attention in formal research systems. Dec 2007