ZAO LA UYOGA NI CHAKULA kizuri na cha kujenga mwili

Na Adam Ihucha-Arusha

Farmers in the sprawling plains of Manyara region are turning to
cultivation of one of the world's most prized wild mushroom as an
alternative cash crop.

A local price of dry kg of mushroom  – the basic raw material for
nutritious soup -- stands at Sh 60,000/- and experts predict the
amount could even double in the near future due to its health value.

Often grouped with vegetables, mushrooms provide many of the
nutritional attributes of produce, as well as attributes more commonly
found in meat, beans or grains.

Mushrooms are low in calories, fat-free, cholesterol-free and very low
in sodium, yet they provide important nutrients, including selenium,
potassium, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin D and more.

Introduced two years ago by Farm Africa, an International organization
with its presence in Manyara, mushroom has dubbed ‘the white gold’ by
the farmers who were upset by price uncertainty of other traditional
cash crops.

Growers in Babati rural and Mbulu districts say whereas an acre of
maize used to earn them sh 360,000/- annually, the same area under
mushroom fetches nearly Sh 200 million per annum, a respectable money
in a country where the official average annual income for a farmer is
less than Sh 500,000/-.

Bernard Sambali from Bashneti village says the acre can accommodate
181 mushroom sheds with the capacity to yield 398,888 kg of fresh
mushroom a year worth Sh 199.44 million at the current price of Sh
5,000/- per kg.

Sambali who three years back together with hundreds other farmers
resorted to harvest Nou forest illegally, now he laughs all the way to
the bank, earning Sh 75,000 per week from mushroom sales he grows at a
quarter an acre.

Edmund Stanley and Rosemary Ero both from Harambee Mushroom Group in
Endaw village in Babati Rural are grateful to the Farm Africa, saying
it has transformed their rural lives to the better through the cash
crop.

“Mushroom crop is the best in making soup for mothers who have just
given birth. So we grow mushroom not only to make money, but also for
our consumption” Ms Ero noted.

Edible mushrooms are consumed by humans for their nutritional and
occasionally supposed medicinal value as comestibles.

Christina Mihindi from Hayseng’ village in Mbulu district says: “We
never knew the economic value of mushroom – normally they used to grow
in forest areas but now thanks to Farm African, we can grow them at
home for commercial purposes.”

Farm Africa Communication officer, Goodness Mrema says, for the people
living on the edge of Nou Forest, mushrooms have always been part of
the forest landscape around them.

But until two years ago, she says, the villagers were unaware that the
mushroom on the land beneath their feet was a potential-money-maker
that could offer them alternative income.

With few other options available, forest communities made money from
selling timber for construction or illegal hunting of wildlife within
the thick Nou forest such as gazelles.

Now all have changed thanks to Farm Africa’s work with villagers in
Mbulu and Babati districts for discovering mushroom as a new cash crop
to earn cash-strapped farmers, money through environmentally friendly
businesses that protect, rather than damage, the forest.

Goodness says mushrooms commercial production was the brainchild of
their scheme known as Tanzania Participatory Forest Management Project
(TPFM).

“The idea is to provide an alternative income undertaking to the
community around Nou and Dareda escarpment forests in a bid to
discourage them to destruct forestry” she explained.

As it happened, Farm–Africa had to train the farmers on how to grow
mushrooms, group dynamics and arrange for study tours in a bid to save
the renowned Nou forest from deforestation.

“Mushroom farming has proved a successful business, as the Nou
abundant forest offers up all the materials needed to set up a
mushroom shed” she said, adding farmers from 13 villages formed an
association and built a collection centre, which they use for
training, processing and packaging mushrooms.

“Thanks to our training in how to produce spores, farmers now sell
those too, boosting their earning power even further” Goodness said.

But mushrooms aren’t only for sale – families also have more food to
eat at home.
With time Farm Africa expects the farmers’ association will become
self-sufficient and take over running the business.

“As things stand now, the farmers take their bottles of spores and
newfound knowledge to share with other villages the secret to
protecting their forest” goodness concluded.