Mushroom farming models can be applied on small acreage and suitable for all regions of the country as they boast abundant natural materials. Overview by Vietnam Economic News.
A recent prime ministerial decision highlighted mushrooms as a national product; and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) also signed a national product development project for edible and pharmaceutical mushrooms.
This is an important legal framework for the country in general and Hanoi in particular to further develop mushroom farming models.
Foreseeing the development trend of the mushroom market, right from 2011, the municipal Department of Science and Technology has supported Thanh Cao Kinoko Import Export Co., Ltd to deploy an edible and pharmaceutical mushroom production project on the company’s three-ha area in Doc Tin commune, Chuong My district.
The area was converted from inefficient sericulture to mushroom production. The successful mushroom farming model will be replicate in many other localities. It is estimated that every year, the company and its member units use from 1,000-1,500 tonnes of straw, sawdust, bagasse, stems and cobs to grow mushrooms, and produce from 500-700 tonnes of fresh mushrooms worth of 10-15 billion VND.
“The resources of straw, sawdust, stems and cobs in the commune are enough to produce thousands of tonnes of mushrooms per year, meeting fresh food demands of Perfume Pagoda tourists and Hanoi’s population,” Director of Thanh Cao Kinoko Import Export Co., Ltd Duong Thi Thu Hue said.
According to the Centre for Plant Biotechnology under the Agricultural Genetics Institute, with a great number of mushroom farming skilled workers, relatively widened mushroom markets, and abundant resources of straw, sawdust, stems and cobs, Hanoi is fully conditional for production of one million tonnes of mushrooms per year.
Centre director Dinh Xuan Linh said Hanoi currently has a number of units able to produce mushrooms industrially but somehow spontaneously and on small scales. Therefore, to replicate mushroom farming models, Hanoi needs to have mushroom development projects and related incentives to support mushroom producers such as preferential land rent and loans.
By a rough reckoning, farming mushroom may yield 20-fold higher than farming rice and 10-fold than farming vegetables per ha; meanwhile, farmers can utilise resources of straw, sawdust, stems and cobs.
In the coming time, the municipal Department of Industry and Trade ought to develop a mushroom development project until 2020 focusing on a number of pilot models for replication, along with conducting researches for high quality varieties and promoting mechanization in mushroom production.
Mushroom farming models can be applied on small acreage and suitable for all regions of the country. However, mushroom production requires implementation of a series of closed technologies from the stage of breeding, material handling, care, harvesting, storage and processing. So, when replicating mushroom farming models in rural areas it is important to focus on training and science and technology transfer to farmers./.
