Mushroom Project Lifts Bukesa Women Out of Poverty

from All Africa

New Vision (Kampala)

NEWS

By Pidson Kareire
Kampala

WHEN Zawedde Ssengendo was working with the National Resistance Movement as a mobiliser a few years ago, she had to attend meetings that promoted sustainable development. She picked interest in mushroom growing, but was not sure whether she would earn enough to sustain her family.

Later, she did research about mushroom growing. Her main source of knowledge was women groups from other areas. She learnt new and better ways of producing high-quality mushrooms.

She then decided to embark on the project, which she knew would allow her enough time for her family, while earning an income. She also wanted to show other farmers that it was possible to start a successful project from scratch.

With her meagre savings, she helped a group of 50 women of Bukesa parish in Kampala Central Division begin urban farming.

She started growing mushrooms in a small room at her home in 2004. Today, she has several rooms.

Inside the room, mushrooms grow on cotton bags filled with organic, chopped and pasteurised straw and cottonseed hulls that have been soaked in water. Mushroom seeds are mixed in the straw and holes are pierced in the 10-inch-diameter bags.

As soon as the mushrooms start germinating, the bags are removed from the spawn room and taken to another room where temperature and humidity are controlled. When the mushrooms consume the available nutrients, the dark-brown bags turn yellow and the mushrooms come out through the holes in the bag. The mushrooms are then harvested and put in a storage area at 350 F. Mushrooms are also grown on sawdust blocks, an alternative to the traditional method of oak logs. Here the mushrooms grow more quickly and all year round, unlike with the oak logs.

Zawedde gets her sawdust from saw mills in her locality. She plants about 100 gardens (bags) a month in one room. The bags contain sawdust, rye grains and mushroom seeds.

Outside the facility, mushrooms are also grown on 18,000 oak logs. Each log, four to six inches in diameter, has been drilled to accommodate the seeds. They are then covered with hot wax to prevent contamination. Before planting, the logs are soaked in a water tank for up to 16 hours.

The bags can produce 200 to 300kg of mushrooms a month.

Zawedde says her main customers are restaurants and hotels.

She encourages other women to embrace mushroom growing.

She says she has learnt that in business, there is need to diversify.

She also advises other women that as they grow, they should always try to lift other women from poverty. "This is the only way we shall be able to work and look after our families," she says.

Hard working is the only word to describe Zawedde. Apart from mushroom farming, Zawedde and the other 50 women from her village have other projects: herbal and natural health products, agricultural post-handling; value addition, apiary and nursery garden establishments.

The projects are organised under Bukesa Urban Farming Development Association.

From mushrooms, the women make soap, mushroom syrup, mushroom juice and wine and mushroom hot sauce, which they sell to supermarkets in Kampala.

They are now able to get income to sustain their families and to start up other small businesses.

Recently, a visiting team of World Bank officials and several tourists were impressed at the way the women have managed to turn mushroom growing into a profitable venture.