Keonjhar: The Krishi Bigyan Kendra (KBK) in Keonjhar has innovated a new way to ensure additional income for farmers by using leftover threshed paddy straws. Its research findings show that farmers can get a financial windfall if they adopt mushroom cultivation alongside paddy cultivation in a scientific method.
The KBK had recently experimented on nine models on how to make use of leftover straw after paddy production.
Many women farmers, who were involved in the training-cum-experiment, have got firsthand experience on it.
The agriculture scientists working here assessed that the district could produce 3,200 tonne of mushroom in a season if straws are made use of for mushroom farming. The mushroom production in a season could be about Rs 3 crore in the district.
The KBK experiment yielded about 700 gm of Dhingri mushroom by using half a kg of straw and 150 gm of gram of granules.
KBK head Dr Sujit Kumar Rath said that a farmer can earn about Rs 800 from mushroom produced in 10 beds of straw.
“Small and marginal farmers can get huge benefits if they adopt mushroom farming with left-out straw. Apart from paddy, farmers will earn additionally from mushroom cultivation,” KBK scientist Laxmipriya Pradhan.
Dr Sujit Kumar Rath expressed hope that the experiment would bring about a revolutionary change in the economic condition of farmers if their straw is utilized for mushroom cultivation on a large-scale.
He pointed out, “A number of thatched houses and domestic animals are declining in rural areas while more and more concrete houses are coming up. Paddy straws used for covering house roofs or used as fodder for domestic animals are left over in huge quantities.”
If more and more farmers take up mushroom farming by using scientific methods, they will increase their income, Rath added.
