The Department of Agriculture (DA) on Wednesday said the agency’s community-based mushroom production (CBMP) project has been swiftly gaining support among rice farmers nationwide, just barely a year after its launching in September 2013.
Agriculture Undersecretary Emerson Palad said that since its inception, CBMP has already established 33 on-station mushroom tissue-culture laboratories nationwide.
“Moreover, 100 community-based mushroom enterprises involving 2,277 farmers in 31 provinces nationwide are already in operations, providing additional income of up to P6,000 per month for every farmer,” the DA official said during the CBMP year-end assessment forum held at the Sequoia Hotel in Quezon City.
In its accomplishment report, the DA said that since the outset of 2014, the project has efficiently provided trainings to 12,431 beneficiaries.
Majority of those trained on mushroom production are individual farmers totaling 10,384 while the rest are members of farmers’ associations or cooperatives, local government units, public schools and other sectors of society.
Recognizing the quick gestation period of edible mushrooms and their potential as source of income and quick food for relief and rehabilitation functions, CBMP has also engaged in mushroom-production trainings and the distribution of mushroom starter spawns and equipment to support Yolanda victims.
According to the DA report, 10 Yolanda- and earthquake-affected communities in Leyte, Bohol, Iloilo, Cebu, Palawan, Mindoro, Aklan and Capiz were reached by the said intervention.
Palad said CBMP was launched by the DA Rice Program using the experiences and results from the research and development efforts of the DA’s Central Luzon Integrated Agricultural Research Center (CLIARC) based in Tarlac City as an intervention to raise farm productivity and incomes in rice-based farming communities.
Among its aim was to increase and improve nutritional quality of food supply using rice straw, rice hull and other farm-waste materials in the production of mushroom.
Emily Soriano, National Enterprise and Technical Development coordinator of the DA, said that setting up a mushroom enterprise is cheap and uses easy technology but has great income potentials.
Studies had shown that a hectare of rice farm generates about 3.9 metric tons of rice straw per cropping season.
“An enterprise can potentially earn as much as P178,000 in just one cropping by using rice straws from 1 hectare in the production of mushroom fruits, spawn bags and various mushroom products,” Soriano said.
Furthermore, owing to the quick gestation period of edible mushrooms—one to one-and-a-half months per cycle—mushroom farmers can have eight cycles every year, she added. She also noted that mushrooms are also nutritious: they are rich in iron, calcium, vitamin B complex, magnesium and zinc.
“Mushroom production had generated strong interest among rice farmers with many becoming very aggressive in acquiring training and other technical support from the DA,” Soriano said.
Currently, the project is in the process of expanding the number of enterprises engaged in mushroom production, as well as in ensuring the technical, financial and organizational sustainability of community-based enterprises.
Because of the success of the CBMP and its potentials in uplifting the lives of farmers, Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala has pledged the full support of the government for the project to gain nationwide acceptance as a food self-sufficiency program.
In a statement read by Palad, the agriculture chief said the DA would formally launch the CBMP as a national project named “Kabute-hang Pinoy” that would receive a regular yearly allocation.
PNA