http://business.inq7.net/money/topstories/view_article.php?article_id=14999
Benguet university pushes mushroom production By Delmar Cariño Inquirer Last updated 08:00am (Mla time) 08/13/2006
Published on page B3 of the August 13, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
LA TRINIDAD, Benguet—Judging from the experience of Dr. Janet Luis of Benguet State University here, oyster mushrooms are as good a cash crop as strawberries.
“It’s a good business and requires minimum capital and labor,” Luis says. “And Benguet is the best environment to raise mushrooms because of its temperate [climate].”
“Growing them also makes a pitch for organic farming since mushrooms need no fertilizer or other chemicals,” she added.
Luis, 49, knows mushrooms like the back of her hand.
She had taught plant pathology for years at BSU and dealt with mushrooms in her laboratory.
Since 1991, she and her husband, Ben, 50, also a BSU professor in animal science, have made raising oyster mushrooms a family business.
Half of their 370-sq.m. property at Pines Park here was converted into a mushroom growing area.
Recently, they acquired a 1,000-sq.m. lot at Barangay Puguis where they built two houses for more than 7,000 bags of mushrooms.
“We started with a monthly income of P6,000,” Luis says.
She, however, refuses to divulge her family earnings today but the indicators of a successful business abound.
During harvest time, her boys deliver 20-50 kilos a day of fresh oyster mushrooms to the vegetable trading post here. They sell the mushrooms at P100 a kilo.
The buyers include retailers and wholesalers who supply the orders of restaurants in Baguio City and Manila.
She says that while the cost of production was reasonable, an interested grower needed to know the secrets particularly in the growing stage because mushrooms are very sensitive.
“The growing bags of mushrooms need to be moved from time to time. They should be talked to like humans and sometimes, they grow very well when music is played,” she says.
An interested grower can buy the growing bags at P35 each from the BSU mushroom area, she says.
Stored under proper moisture and light, the growing bags can produce mushrooms in just two to three weeks.
It’s the making of the growing bags that is the most difficult part of the process.
First, sawdust is bought from lumber yards at P7 a sack. This is mixed with pulverized rice bran, which acts as the fertilizer.
The mixture is placed in plastic bags, sterilized by “cooking” these in a huge iron pot.
After the bags are sanitized, mushroom tissues are placed in the bags, through a process called spawning, in a sealed laboratory.
After incubation, the bags are stored in a cool and damp growing area.
The entire process takes two to three months, but once the mushrooms sprout, harvest is guaranteed after seven to eight weeks, Luis says.
Luis dreams of selling her produce to high end consumers and institutional buyers who yearn for processed mushroom products like instant mushroom soup, sauce, tea and vegetable mixes in sachets.
Her efforts to build the BSU mushroom center have paid off.
She recently received a P1-million grant from the Philippine Australian Community Assistance Program to establish a mushroom growing enterprise for BSU students who come from poor families.
The students will be trained as mushroom growers and entrepreneurs at the same time through a micro financing scheme with BSU. The BSU will provide soft loans and technical assistance.
Through the BSU multi-purpose cooperative, their products will be sold in big malls in Metro Manila.
Luis, the project director, says the project aims to acquire a processing machine to convert fresh mushrooms into dried products.
The students are expected to produce 30,000 kilos of fresh mushrooms in a year, use the income to settle their loans and later produce their own growing bags and growing houses.
Luis, who conceptualized the project, says the projections were ambitious but achievable because the market for fresh and processed mushrooms is just waiting to be tapped.
|
Quote:
Anno said: the market for fresh and processed mushrooms is just waiting to be tapped.

-SDP
-------------------- Teonanacatl, open up my eyes This sacrament, this prayer, beyond the world of lies Guide me clearly through that which I dont understand Give me strength to find the path Help me fight any demons as you flow through me wholely This is my prayer, that you protect me from evil, and bring me closer to peace And open up my eyes, so i can see things as you do Amen
|