Mushrooms are the exposed fleshy fruiting body of some natural fungi which are widely distributed with a wide range of shape, color and sizes. The poisonous varieties are usually found in the wild. The plants are very rich in protein, vitamins, essential amino-acids and carbohydrates. Mushrooms are low in fat and the fiber is starch-free. Market for them is enormous because of their culinary, nutritional and health advantages..
Some popular species are the oyster and the shrimp like mushrooms while the potential for making money through them is quite great. In China, more than 20 million people engage in the cultivation process and generate more than $20 billion per annum. As far as Nigeria is concerned, the country has a favorable environment and clement weather for their easy cultivation. One estimate says that about one million people in the country work to generate over $3 billion per year from the process.
Mushroom production is quite different from growing the other existing green plants; this is because it does not contain any chlorophyll and therefore depend on other plant material, the substrate, for food. This is why the part of the apparent organism is really just the fruiting body while the near inconspicuous part is the mycelium-tiny threads that grow on the substrate and absorb nutrients by breaking down the organic material. Generally each species of mushroom (and there are a several range of varieties) prefers a particular growing medium even though some of them can thrive on other plant materials.
Growing mushrooms requires a good knowledge and some skill but the benefits for the farmer far overshadow the efforts involved. To start with, the intending cultivators must conduct a very good private and special market analysis in order to identify the necessary profitable skill, cost implication, time consideration and the income accruable from the effort.
Pest control is a very important factor that must be put into consideration when going into this aspect of money making venture so integrated pest management should be borne in mind; this can be accomplished by sanitizing the environment provided to ward off the peculiar pests. The way to do that is by careful study of the ability to identify which of them are active, their quantity and how harmful they will be to the cultivation. Once the life cycle of each problem organism is known, then adequate measures should be taken to make it difficult or impossible for them to bring in any sort of harm to the products.
The next step is to identify governmental agencies, corporate bodies and individuals that are interested both the marketing and the consumption both locally and internationally. After that, a necessary contact must be established with the identified bodies, and then use their knowledge and experience to leverage on the business. This effort will also serve as a veritable support base system. Further step to take in that direction is drawing up of a processing plan from initial harvesting to general marketing. The plan has to be run by a good support system and then put the process in motion.
Notwithstanding the current ever biting global economic recession, food commodities still stand out always on the demand chain while mushroom cultivation is a good avenue to earn hard currency in these hard time days.