Golden Mushrooms

Bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, she quit her job at a publishing house around 12 years ago. She wanted to be free, wished to do something of her own and started doing something that others thought foolish – mushroom farming. As the small farm that she made in one of her bedrooms mushroomed over the years, little did she know that farming history was in the making.

Janaky, the 44-year-old agripreneur from PTP Nagar in Thiruvananthapuram has trodden a path of her own making. She recognised a new opportunity in every challenge. From fresh mushroom production, her venture ‘Swadishta Mushrooms’ flourished in a big way that she is now on the threshold of launching a one-crore farming project spread over six acres of land near Ooruttambalam. Apart from fresh mushroom farming, Janaky operates a spawn industry, supplies value added products from mushroom and runs a vermi-compost unit. Besides, she provides employment to 15 women.

Having been brought up in an agriculture family, Janaky, a post graduate in English has always loved farming. But, she was never interested in the usual sort of vegetable cultivation. It was her husband, Sreekumar, an Agriculture officer who introduced her to mushroom farming.

“Actually, I only thought of doing it in a small way that could fetch me some pocket money. Mushroom beds were set up in a portion of the bed room and I started cultivating Oyster mushrooms. Some time later, I took part in a mushroom cultivation training and it was very helpful to me,’’ she says.

The first challenge for Janaky was to find a market for her produce. “The concept of using fresh mushroom was not there when I began my initiative. Restaurants used the canned button mushrooms that came from Ooty or Himachal Pradesh. After much effort, one vegetarian hotel in the city agreed to try the fresh mushrooms on the condition that I had to provide recipes. It became so successful that they began to give orders everyday,” says Janaky, who used most of her produce to make various mushroom recipes. “You know, every non-vegetarian curry can be substituted with mushrooms. Right from chilly chicken to soups, you can substitute meat with mushroom,’’ she adds.

At the same time, she held cooking demonstrations with mushroom recipes in clubs, hotels and residential colonies. A small quantity of mushroom along with a recipe was distributed free of cost during those sessions. She also served the participants hot mushroom cutlets to sample. Gradually, the demand for her produce increased. She also began cultivating milky mushrooms. The farm expanded to the other rooms and later to a rented house nearby.

But, it has never been a straight path to success. She had to face several bumps and detours. “There was severe shortage of good spawns at that time. In order to meet the demands, we had to produce a definite quantity of mushrooms consistently. To tackle this, we started a spawn production unit in the rented house where spawns are packed in a sterile environment,” says Janaky who uses an inoculation chamber with UV light in her spawn laboratory.

She overcame the challenge of garbage disposal by starting vermi compost unit to manage the solid waste. Mushroom beds, usually made of straw and each weighing more than a kilogram, should be replaced every one-and-a-half month.

Mushroom farming gives sudden profit but it can collapse like anything, says Janaky citing the huge loss she suffered due to a pest attack. “Being a Saprophyte, it is highly sensitive. One single pest attack will affect the whole yield. It will spread quickly and the entire mushroom beds will have to be replaced,’’ she adds.

However, once she had to promise her mother that she would quit her venture – at the hospital bed when she was suffering from 20 percent burns following a burst in her spawn lab. “For creating a sterile environment to pack the spawns, we used a glass chamber fitted with a burner. One day it burst accidentally and I suffered serious burns. All the time while I was in the hospital, my mother asked me to promise her that I would not continue farming. She always said that I am a little abnormal. Soon after the completion of my treatment I resumed my activities,’’ she chuckles.

Now, ‘Swadishta Mushrooms’ caters to the mushroom requirements of major hotels in the city. It is also one of the biggest spawn suppliers in the state, having a production of around 2500 packets per month. About six tonnes of Vermi-compost is produced every month of which a major chunk is supplied to Agri Horti Society. Above all, Janaky conducts free training programme at her home on the last Saturday of every month. She believes her best is yet to come.

Presently, her business is in a transition stage. Everything is being transferred to the new farm in Ooruttambalam, where she aims to double the production. “Apart from year round production of mushroom and spawned mushroom beds, we are planning continuous production and sale of value-added mushroom products and their popularisation.”

Besides, the firm will serve as a demonstration unit, conducting training programmes and promoting contract farming with buy-back arrangement,” says Janaky, who has secured the progressive farmer award instituted by the Directorate of Mushroom Research, Solan.

(The New Indian Express, City Express, 2010)