http://www.kuenselonline.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7297
More hands than mushrooms
Posted on Tuesday, August 08, 2006, @ 12:53:26 EDT Home news 8 August 2006
That steaming bowl of Shamu Datse (mushroom and cheese) curry, a culinary delight for the Bhutanese palate, could soon become a rare and an expensive indulgence.
It is the height of the mushroom season but as of yesterday there were only three farmers in the Thimphu vegetable market selling small quantities of freshly picked mushroom.
The programme director of the National Mushroom Centre in Semtokha, Dawa Penjore, attributes the scarcity to insufficient rainfall in the past two years. “The vegetative part of a mushroom in the substrate (underground) needs to be in a moist and damp place if they are to grow,” he said.
But over harvesting, the more threatening cause, could have serious long-term consequences.
Dawa Penjore told Kuensel that everyone was free to walk into the woods and collect mushrooms. This put immense pressure on the already limited resources.
The lack of trained collectors led to improper mushroom harvesting leaving it vulnerable for future regeneration.
Disturbance to the soil and consequent damage to the host plant, over picking and collectors carrying plastic bags that prevented release of spores into the forests were some of the other reasons for the decline.
The programme director said that the centre conducted frequent trainings for collectors in sustainable mushroom harvesting but the training could not reach everyone since anyone could just go and pick the wild delicacies.
For instance, Gyem from Paga, Chukha, who sells mushroom at the vegetable market, has been collecting and selling wild mushrooms for the past two years without any formal training.
“I just pick whatever I get, small or big, since every piece counts,” she said adding that mushroom was the only source of extra income for her.
During the mushroom season, Gyem ventures into the woods as early as 7:00 am and returns home only after sunset with just a few grams of shakam shamu and jichugangru (ramaria) mushrooms.
Like Gyem, 57-year old Ap Chundu from Jabana, Haa, also sells mushrooms at the market though he is not a regular collector.
“I take my cattle to the forest for grazing and pick some mushrooms if they are on my way although coming across one is not so common as it used to be in the past,” he said.
Ap Chundu has about three kilogrammes of giant mushrooms, locally called as yongshamu, costing Nu. 100 a kilogramme for sale. He sold five kilogrammes last year.
“I am not a regular collector and so I cannot attend the training leaving my other important works,” he said. “Mushroom collection just brings me some extra cash and that’s about it.”
To curb these practices, the mushroom centre has encouraged village communities to manage the collection themselves.
For instance, the centre has helped the community at Genekha, Thimphu, where the famous Matsutake (Sangay shamu) is found, to manage the proper harvesting of mushroom.
Here farmers are trained and allowed to collect Matsutake from August to October. The mushroom is sold mostly to Japan and Singapore and the rest to India, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Nepal.
Bhutan has been exporting Matsutake to Japan since 1991 with the highest export in 1996 at 3,299 kilogrammes (kgs). Export, however, has since then dropped to 196 kgs in 2000, according to the agriculture marketing unit figures.
A survey undertaken by the centre also shows a reduction in the production of other mushrooms like sisi shamu (Chantarelle), jichugangru (Ramaria) and dungshi shamu (Rozites Caberata).”
Regular collectors like 39-year old Kencho Thinley, who has been collecting mushrooms for the last 14 years, said that the productivity of the mushrooms has declined considerably in recent years.
“The government should demarcate specific territories for each village or gewog to collect the mushrooms and not just allow everyone,” he said adding that such a rule would help keep the number of collectors at a manageable number.
“With such a system the collectors can be easily identified and hence proper training could be given to all,” he said.
While farmers in the locality are foraging deeper and further into the mountains in search of the elusive mushroom, some of the market demand is being met by an enterprising few who grow mushrooms in their own backyards.
Today there were about 500 mushroom growers, from small to commercial ventures, in the country, who mostly cultivated sokey shamu (shitake). Most of the growers sold their products directly to restaurants and retailers and more people are considering to opt this lucrative business.
Gyem, however, had no grand plans for such an enterprise and is happy to make do with whatever little she can gather from the woods, though blissfully unaware, that her ill-trained hands could be slowly strangling her own livelihood.
|