India is not a major producer of any of the mushroom varieties, but it does cultivate mushrooms and has great potential as an important producer in the future. From a production standpoint, the white button mushroom has the highest growth rate and potential for production.
However, the cultivation of oyster mushrooms has been more common since the end of the last century, when the infrastructure of oyster mushroom growing was much improved and therefore capital requirements went way down in comparison with the requirements for white button mushroom cultivation.
Though India’s present share in the world production and trade of oyster mushroom is meager, being only an estimated 2,000 tons, the potential for the future is rated as high for a variety of reasons.
India has a very large availability of various types of raw substrate material such as wheat straw, paddy straw, bagasse, chicken manure, gypsum, tea waste, de-oiled cakes and so forth in almost all the regions and these materials are relatively inexpensive when compared with international prices.
In 2001-2002, the production of wheat and paddy in India was estimated to be 73.53-90.75 million tons respectively. Although the residue straws are commonly used as fodder, almost 50% of the crop residues are still potentially available for the growing of mushrooms.
India has large number of agro-climatic regions that offer congenial climatic conditions for mushroom cultivation. India also has a good combination of both the technical and non-technical manpower needed to operate and manage the mushroom growing operations.
The supply and demand gap in the world trade of mushrooms and the shrinkage of production in countries like Taiwan and South Korea due to high labor costs would result in better market prices for Indian mushroom producers.
The costs of building materials and other inputs related to construction costs are much lower in India than in many other countries. This keeps the investment cost per unit weight of mushroom produced more advantageous in India India is also developing its infrastructure rapidly and therefore enjoys a
large and well-organized distribution network that facilitates the marketing of products in order to meet domestic consumer demands.
large and well-organized distribution network that facilitates the marketing of products in order to meet domestic consumer demands.
From a dietary standpoint mushrooms are a particularly favorable food in vegetarian-predominant India. With a domestic population of more than one billion, India itself is a large market for mushrooms.
The per capita consumption of mushrooms in India is currently only about 25g per year although there has been a steady increase in the consumption of exotic mushrooms including oyster mushrooms in addition to the use of regular button mushrooms. This increase can be seen as a highly encouraging sign coming from the potential mushroom consumers in India.
Cultivated mushrooms are available today in all common vegetable shops, grocery stores, department stores in both small and big towns in India.
One final reason for optimism concerning India’s potential as a major mushroom producer is its strategic geographical location with respect to exportation, making it convenient to export oyster mushrooms to the Middle East, Europe, the United States, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
No comments:
Post a Comment