Srinagar- Perseverance pays off and this young girl from Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district has proved it right!
Rumi Jan, 23, was sitting idle at home after finishing her college but she always wanted to start something of her own to support her family of six. But a simple visit to the office of Jammu and Kashmir Rural Livelihood Mission (JKRLM) at her home district changed her life forever.
Jan registered herself as a member of JKRLM scheme and got a hundred bags of mushroom for cultivation at her own home. “Everything including the mushroom crop was provided free of cost,” Jan, a resident of Rohmoo, Pulwama told Kashmir Observer.
After forty days, she harvested the first lot of the mushrooms and earned around Rs 5000. “Initially I managed to get five to ten kilograms of mushrooms per day from my farm but gradually I learnt that mushroom cultivation is a technical process that requires proper use of technology and guidance from experts,” Jan said.
After working day and night, Jan has now started yielding more than three quintals of mushroom per season with a net profit of two lakh rupees.
Mushroom cultivation has been a great source of income in Jammu and Kashmir with more and more youth choosing this business. The much in demand vegetable can be grown in a temperature between 20 and 30 degrees Celsius and requires relative humidity of 55-75 per cent. This makes Jammu and Kashmir a suitable place for mushroom cultivation and processing.
The government is encouraging youth in the rural areas to take up mushroom cultivation, which has a potential entrepreneurship for youth in a big way. Market for mushrooms in the valley is growing rapidly owing to its nutritious value and special taste. The main consumers of mushrooms are Chinese food restaurants, hotels, clubs and households as well.
Similarly, Gowhar Ali Lone, 28 from Khoechipora, Tangmarg received many local and national awards for his contribution to the agro-farming industry and promoting and growing mushrooms on a large scale in the union territory.
Lone told Kashmir Observer that he started cultivating mushrooms in the year 2007 with the help of the government and now runs a 500-tray mushroom operation out of a single room in his house. “I currently produce 30 quintals of mushroom per season,” Lone added.
Lone appeals to youth not to sit idle at home and approach the government for help and take the benefits under different schemes.
The government, this year, announced that they are implementing a full-fledged project on ‘Promotion of Round the Year Mushroom Cultivation’ (PRYMC) across the UT.
The project, according to the government, will be implemented at a cost of around Rs 42 crore over the next three years by the Agriculture Production Department of J&K and will increase the production of mushrooms by 3.5 times and revolutionise mushroom cultivation here.
The growing domestic and export market, the delicacy and food value provides extensive and good potential for cultivation of mushrooms. There is also a growing market for processed, dried and packed mushrooms as their shelf life is longer.
According to the government, the production of mushrooms was at 6,983.23 quintals, out of which 5,442 quintals were a produce from Jammu division and 1,541.23 quintals from Kashmir in 2011-12.
Mushrooms are of different types, the most common being the button mushrooms followed by Dhingri (Oyster) and Paddy Straw mushrooms.
The Valley boasts many success stories in the mushroom cultivation business and the administration’s fifty percent subsidy and technical knowledge is making the cultivation profitable for growers.
Under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna (National Agriculture Development Programme), mushroom cultivation is a focus area and growers are equipped with quality seeds and are trained as per scientific cultivation techniques.
Women-led self-help groups (SHGs) are also being encouraged under HAUSLA and TEJASWINI entrepreneurship schemes introduced by the Centre in J&K.
Follow this link to join our WhatsApp group: Join Now
Be Part of Quality Journalism |
Quality journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce and despite all the hardships we still do it. Our reporters and editors are working overtime in Kashmir and beyond to cover what you care about, break big stories, and expose injustices that can change lives. Today more people are reading Kashmir Observer than ever, but only a handful are paying while advertising revenues are falling fast. |
| ACT NOW |
| MONTHLY | Rs 100 |  |
| YEARLY | Rs 1000 | |
| LIFETIME | Rs 10000 | |
