SRINAGAR, INDIAN-ADMINISTERED KASHMIR – From her home in Noorkah-Uri village in the Kashmir Valley, Naseema Bano cultivates button mushrooms in trays to sell at the local market.
“It is profitable, and people have started purchasing,” Bano says.
Bano says that each tray yields 3 to 4 kilograms of mushrooms. She gets two crops per year – one in March and the other in October. Bano says mushrooms are easy to cultivate because they depend on locally available materials such as mule dung and paddy straw.
But mushrooms are proving to be something else here – a substantial profit for women in the valley, who have not had much financial freedom here.
“We sell it at the rate of 80 rupees [$2 USD] per kilogram in a local market,” she says.
Bano says that she now contributes to her family with her earnings. Her husband is a laborer and has to support a large family.
“The unit is helpful, as it helps me in supporting the family financially,” Bano says.
And Bano is not the only woman who has taken up the mushroom craft here.
More than 200 women throughout the Kashmir Valley are benefiting from two model “mushroom villages” that a local university set up to reduce unemployment and increase empowerment among women. The growers and program managers say that production is simple, yet economic gains are large. Although challenges exist – such as marketing, financial capital, gender barriers and space – the program works with the women to overcome each obstacle. The two model villages may be the first of many, as another organization has also started a mushroom cultivation scheme here and the university program has set goals to increase its growers’ productivity. In all, women mushroom growers in the Kashmir Valley say they hope to eventually compete in national and international mushroom markets.
As in many parts of the world, women in this region say that strict gender roles hinder their economic empowerment – and the region’s economic development. According to India’s most recent census in 2001, the female work participation rate was just 25.6 percent nationally. The state of Kashmir and Jammu fell even below the national average at 22.5 percent.
To reduce unemployment and empower women, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology-Kashmir, SKUAST-K, created two model mushroom villages in 2009 and 2010 in the northeastern districts of Baramulla and Budgam. In these villages, women grow mushrooms in their homes to sell at local markets as part of a pilot project to promote self-employment.
“The university offers training for self-employment schemes so that youth in general and women in particular benefit,” says Nazir Ahmad Munshi, senior scientist in charge of SKUAST-K’s Mushroom Research and Training Centre. “Students belonging to financially weak families, too, are enrolled under such program so that they can earn and learn.”
Munshi says they offer trainings to women first at the university, then at demonstration centers in their villages and finally at their individual homes. Later, they provide the women with materials to start production.
So far, 136 women are producing mushrooms in the village in Budgam, and 65 women are producing mushrooms in the village in Baramulla. One woman, Haleema Begum, says the program is already benefiting her family.
“After acquiring training from the center, I’ve set up my own unit,” Begum says. “I don’t have to work hard as it is an easy task, and I have engaged my family members as well.”
Munshi says they also train the women to preserve mushrooms and prepare mushroom soup.
Munshi says that mushroom production is a feasible business because it can be done at home and with locally available materials.
“Being a home-based unit, women prefer mushroom production,” he says. “Besides, raw material required for mushroom compost that is important for mushroom production is locally available, like paddy and wheat straw, chicken manure and horse dung. We even train our trainees how autumn fallen leaves, like apple and chinar, can be used as compost for mushroom production.”
Munshi says they provide the women with quality spawn, or seeds, for free through the Horticulture Technology Mission, a government-funded mission to promote socio-economic development in India’s northeastern region.
He says production is also easy to sustain because the program stresses low-cost technology. After a ban in the valley on polythene, or plastic used for packaging, growers started using trays, baskets, cement bags and other containers for mushroom production.
“Production technology is simple,” Munshi says. “It is not dependent on power and is [an] employment-generating unit.”
On top of the simple and sustainable production process, Munshi says the mushrooms yield a significant profit for the women.
“For a minimum of 200 trays or 500 bags, she can earn 10,000 rupees, $220 USD, per month,” he says.
He says that one grower earned $150,000 rupees, almost $3,400 USD, last year. He says that some growers have even been able to market their produce in New Delhi, India’s capital.
Munshi says that mushroom demand in the market is high. Although hundreds of varieties of mushrooms are found across the state, many of them are wild and are therefore poisonous and inedible. He says that cosmetic industries also use mushrooms in the different creams they manufacture and that they have important pharmaceutical uses, too.
“Earlier, it was considered as a delicacy,” he says. “It is rich in protein, and its protein value lies between meat and vegetable. Diabetic patient[s] can take it as it is [a] low-caloric food vegetable. Eighty percent of it is water.”
Once the women generate income from the mushrooms, they can start to commercialize them, he says.
But Munshi says that it can be hard for growers to market their mushrooms because they are women.
“Given the social setup here, it is difficult for women to move [into the] market to sell the produce,” he says.
He says that in response, the university has decided to help the women market their produce through its Krishi Vigyan Kendras, centers that offer training to farmers in various agricultural activities. The vice chancellor has also agreed to arrange load carriers for them to take the produce to the markets.
The university is also working on providing mini-canning units, which process the mushrooms, in the villages. Munshi says that the villages should also have mushroom houses or farms where the women can easily cultivate them.
Others say another problem is space.
“Space in their respective homes isn’t easily provided by the families to women for this purpose,” says one grower, Shaista Bano, who is not related to Naseema Bano.
Munshi says this is especially a problem in urban areas.
“Many girls from [the] city approach us, but they don’t have space to make the compost,” he says. “We are planning to provide them pasteurized compost so that they can go for cultivation of dhingri mushroom[s].”
Munshi says this pasteurized compost will also prevent diseases.
Bano says that women also face financial and social constraints because of their gender while trying to enter the mushroom business.
“We face financial problems, as families aren’t encouraging and it is difficult for us to avail loan facilities,” she says. “Parents don’t encourage their girls for setting up businesses.”
Bano says that in her culture, families treat sons and daughters differently. She says that if their families won’t help them pursue their business interests, that the government should.
“[The] government should provide women with financial assistance for setting up such micro-units,” she says.
Munshi says that despite these constraints, the success rate among the women is still high in mushroom production.
Other organizations are trying to encourage women through the mushroom business as well. The Centre for Environment and Education, CEE, Himalaya, a nongovernmental organization, is also promoting self-employment by helping women in remote areas to set up micro-units. With sponsorship by Welthungerhilfe, a German relief organization, mushroom cultivation is one of CEE Himalaya’s programs.
“Mushroom is being cultivated for the first time in [the] border area Uri,” says Mubashir Ahmad, CEE Himalaya coordinator. “People here didn’t know that mushroom could be cultivated and consumed. We got spawn from SKUAST-K and offered it to our beneficiaries.”
Abdhesh Gangwar, CEE Himalaya’s regional director of the northern and northeastern regions, says that the women grow mushrooms organically without chemical fertilizers.
Munshi says that the university is focusing on mushroom quality for the future, too.
“We are trying to focus more on cultivation of [the] dhingri mushroom,” Munshi says. “Button mushroom offers two crops a year, whereas dhingri offers five crops a year.”
Munshi says that although button mushrooms sell for 20 more rupees, 44 cents USD, at the market, they also require one month for compost, which dhingri mushrooms don’t need. Dhingri mushrooms can also be dried, whereas button mushrooms have a shorter shelf life.
Munshi says that if the growers can maintain the proper temperature in the winter, mushrooms can be cultivated year-round – meaning that Kashmir could compete with China in mushroom production. He says that the women would also need to sell their produce at 60 rupees, $1.30 USD, per kilogram to be able to be competitive.
“We’ve [got] a potential to compete at [the] national and international level,” he says.
To reach this goal and because of the success of the two model villages, the university aims to set up five more mushroom villages across the valley by the end of this year.
Begum says that they are getting good returns from the crop but that they must be diligent to create a successful industry.
“[The] mushroom industry in [the] valley is progressing,” she says. “But it can’t bring laurels to [our] state unless our youth devote[s] its services to this blooming industry.”
