SHILLONG: To scale up the production of mushroom from a mere 27 metric tonnes, Meghalaya embarks on an ambitious task to produce 5000 metric tonnes in five years while choosing to empower farmers for the plan.
State Agriculture Department will make an investment of Rs 50 crore in 136 villages over a period of five years in 33 villages for button mushroom, 70 villages for oyster mushroom, 33 for shitake mushroom.
With a purpose to promote mushroom cultivation as an ancillary economic activity in rural Meghalaya, the department of Agriculture launched the Mushroom Mission on Monday at All Saints’ Hall.
According to Agricultural Production Commissioner of Meghalaya, KN Kumar, mushroom production is a lucrative option available to the farmers which needs to be tapped carefully.
The cultivation of mushroom is seen as environmentally sustainable, it is also an excellent source of protein and vitamin D, mushroom can be used as a backyard activity and require very small landmass for their production, mushroom also fetches very good price.
“Mushroom cultivation is also women-friendly and not very heavy to deal with. It would be very for us to promote mushroom as women-friendly or gender friendly activity,” he said.
In the draft of the mushroom mission document, types of mushrooms such as button mushrooms, shitake and oyster mushroom are included.
“Another reason is that Meghalaya’s climatic condition is highly suitable for mushroom. In each of the five agro-climatic zones, we have some kind of a mushroom that grows very well,” Kumar said.
At the same time, he shared a vision of the department to set up a high-tech mushroom cultivation farm as 100 per cent export oriented farms.
“There are farmers who are willing to undertake the exercise in a mission mode,” he said.
Besides underlining the importance of mushroom as dietary option to reduce the dependence of red meat for protein, Kumar said the aim to launch the mushroom mission is to create adequate infrastructure in the government sector and also to build the capacity and skills of the mushroom farmers for a long period of time.
Places to focus
Button mushroom will be focused in 33 villages in three districts of Meghalaya – East and West Khasi Hills and South West Khasi Hills District. Oyster mushroom will be focused 70 villages in seven districts of the state and shitake mushrooms will be introduced and the department will experiment the mushroom.
“Shitake is not a fully developed technology for us, we have to learn a lot about shitake, though it is available in the wild in some form or the other, though we are not sure whether they are edible. We have to cross check the availability of wild mushroom,” Kumar said.
“We are looking at Khar-Ar Shnong block of East Khasi Hills district as the pilot district for the introduction of Shitake mushroom,” he added.
Meanwhile, Agriculture Minister, Banteidor Lyngdoh expressed concern that the investment in mushroom cultivation is not very high and fund can be mobilized by the department for the purpose.
According to him, the high production of mushroom will enable the farmers to export them to other places in India and also sufficient for domestic production.