Context: Recently, Ministry of Tribal Affairs has announced inclusion of 23 additional Minor Forest Produce (MFP) items in Minimum Support Price (MSP) list. 
Key Points

• They include Van Tulsi seeds, Van Jeera, Mushroom, Black Rice and Johar Rice among others.
• The decision enhancing the coverage from 50 to 73 items comes in view of the COVID-19 pandemic so that much needed support could be provided to the tribal MFP gatherers.
• The Ministry has provided flexibility to States to fix MSP upto 10% higher or lower than MSP declared by the Government.
• This was done under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme titled "Mechanism for Marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) through Minimum Support Price (MSP) and development of value chain of MFP" which was launched in 2011.
• TRIFED is the nodal agency for the implementation of the scheme.

About Minor Forest Produce

• Minor Forest Produce (MFP) is basically a subset of forest produce and got a definition only in 2007 when the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, was enacted.
• According to Section 2(i) of the said Act, Minor Forest Produce (MFP) are all non-timber forest produce of plant origin and includes bamboo, brushwood, stumps, canes, Tusser, cocoon, honey, waxes, Lac, tendu/kendu leaves, medicinal plants and herbs, roots, tuber and the like.
• Thus, the definition of “minor forest produce” includes bamboo and cane, thereby changing the categorization of bamboo and cane as “trees” under the Indian Forest Act 1927.

 About TRIFED

• The Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED) came into existence in 1987. It is a national-level apex organization functioning under the administrative control of Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
• TRIFED has its Head Office located in New Delhi and has a network of 13 Regional Offices located at various places in the country.
• The ultimate objective of TRIFED is socio-economic development of tribal people in the country by way of marketing development of the tribal products such as metal craft, tribal textiles, pottery, tribal paintings and pottery on which the tribals depends heavily for major portion of their income.
• TRIFED acts as a facilitator and service provider for tribes to sell their product.
• The approach by TRIFED aims to empower tribal people with knowledge, tools and pool of information so that they can undertake their operations in a more systematic and scientific manner.
• It also involves capacity building of the tribal people through sensitization, formation of Self Help Groups (SHGs) and imparting training to them for undertaking a particular activity.