Agartala: Over the past few years, mushroom cultivation has gained immense popularity in the Northeast. From Nagaland to Assam to Meghalaya, locals, especially women, have realised the true potential of mushrooms in alleviating chronic poverty witnessed in several rural areas.
Monti, who used to tap rubber earlier, was so poor at one point in time that she had to take a decision no mother wants to take: she sent her three children to a local child home so that they could get the proper care.
Monti used to barely earn Rs 7,000 a month working as a labourer on a rubber plantation. Since her husband was between jobs that time, it meant she became the family’s sole breadwinner. With no end to hardships, Monti had no option but to send her children away from their home in Jharjharia, a village in the Ranirkhamar area in the peripheries of Agartala city.
The turning point for Monti came in 2020 when she enrolled in a training course in mushroom cultivation through a local social organisation. While she learned valuable lessons, she did not have any idea about the demand for mushrooms in local markets. She knew even little about the concept of ‘marketing’. With no other option in sight, she started ferrying the mushrooms to local markets, and sold them directly to consumers. “I remember making Rs 3,500 for my first harvest,” she said. To put this in context, she earned from her first harvest what she would have made working half a month on the rubber plantation.
Monti knew there was no going back. She decided to switch over to the commercial cultivation of mushrooms. Wasting no time, she took a loan of about Rs 2 lakh from a local micro-finance company to procure the necessary equipment. Despite a pandemic in between, Monti stuck to this business. Now, she has two thousand packets of mushrooms in her production unit with the highest production capacity of 12 kg. In its lowest yield, she manages to get 7 kg of mushroom.
According to Monti, she grows two varieties of mushrooms: milky and oyster. “We sell the milky mushroom at Rs 400 per kg and the oyster at Rs 200 per kg,” she said.
On average, she now earns Rs 30,000-Rs 40,000 every month selling mushrooms. As their financial situation improved, her children returned home, and she already repaid the maximum loan amount. “I have a plan to improve the scale of production by introducing new equipment. I also want to start the production of button mushrooms in the days to come. A husk cutting machine is also required which will be procured soon,” she added.
Her husband, Ganesh Debnath recently got a job in the municipal corporation as a contractual worker. He said he is helping his wife in mushroom cultivation. “I am happy that she has attained self-reliance through mushroom cultivation. We are working together to build the business block by block,” he added.
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