**3. Differentiation of underutilized and neglected grasses**

The underutilized grasses might be defined as grasses that were traditionally grown widely in localized production systems but now their cultivation and use have seriously decline owing to cultural, genetic, agronomic, climatic, economics, globalization and market related factors. Their cultivation and consumption have reduced significantly for their being non-competitive with staple grasses in the same agro-environmental conditions. The net result is the eroding of the grass genetic pool which has narrowed down the choice of crops for improvement as well as adaptation under changing climatic scenarios.

Contrastingly, neglected grasses tend to remain restricted in their centres of origin and are primarily grown by local farmers at the subsistence level. It may be noted that few grass species could be globally; however, tend to prevail in few special niches within local ecology and traditional agricultural systems. Thus, these types of grasses have continued to be grown on limited scale under socio-cultural choices, however these have remained inadequately characterized and historically neglected by researchers, agronomists and conservationists [12].
