Introduction
Poverty, malnutrition and unemployment are the major basic problems prevailing in rural India. In spite of achieving self-sufficiency in food grains production, the poor farmers - "the producers of food" are still under-fed and under-nourished leading to malnutrition mainly due to their low family income. Due to small land holdings, their agricultural land can not provide them complete food security and round the year employment. In fact, the unemployment problem is not only in agriculture but also in other sectors. The number of rural and urban educated unemployed youths is increasing day by day despite various poverty alleviation and employment generation programmes/schemes. About 35% of India's population is still living below the poverty line. All these problems can be partly tackled if mushroom cultivation is promoted as it is capable to provide nutritious food, income as well as employment. Mushroom cultivation was started in India in sixties but till now it could not be get place in the diet of common man particularly because lack of awareness, high price and their produce to foreign market neglecting the domestic market. On the other hand, presently mushroom growing by farmers is confined to winter season and to limited areas only and its consumption is mostly localised to big cities and five star hotels. Thus, India is lagging behind both in respect of production and consumption as compared to other mushroom producing countries. Hence, promotion of mushroom cultivation and consumption is urgently called for to enhance its production and marketability, thereby overcoming the problems of poverty, malnutrition and unemployment.
Advantages of Mushroom Cultivation
The artificial cultivation ensures that mushroom sold is truly edible. They are now regarded as useful food in modern diets, complementing the staple diet. Dieticians, to counter obesity and other syndromes associated with present-day eating habits, often prescribe them.
Plant residues such as straw, leaves, and also wastes from agricul-ture, forest and industry mostly remain unused. These are disposed off by burning or by some other wasteful and sometimes harmful methods.
However, by suitable treatment, these residues can be converted into substrates for the cultivation of mushrooms and the spent substrate can be utilized as manure.
Another advantage in mushroom growing is that they are grown in rooms, for which the wasteland may be utilized. Being grown in vertical stacks, for mushroom come into production very rapidly; makes mushroom growing a profitable venture.
There are various types of edible cultivated mushrooms, prominent among them are:-
The most commonly favoured variations in India are button, oyster and paddy straw mushroom.
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