College Embarks On Mushroom Programme

Votualevu College Vocational Agri­culture has become the first school in the nation to include technical teaching in mushroom cultivation.

Minister for Agriculture Mahendra Reddy yesterday launched the Bula Mush­room Foundation.

Bula Mushroom directors, Chaya Kumar and Vinit Lal, began their journey in 2015 after a two-day training at the Legalega Research Station.

They were selected by the Ministry of Agriculture to represent mushroom farmers from Fiji at the Seminar on Jun­cao Technology organised by the Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in China.

Over the years they have harnessed enough experience to help Fiji diversify its agricultural produce and this through mushroom cultivation.

Ms Kumar said the collaboration would be a win-win in supporting their vocation­al students to develop income generating projects.

She said mushroom cultivation was a mystery in itself since mycology is the study of fungus, an area which is yet to be further explored in Fiji.

“At present we are only producing oyster mushrooms but there are plans to intro­duce other edible varieties of course with the assistance being sought from the Min­istry of Agriculture and Biosecurity Au­thority of Fiji,” she said.

“This premise will serve as a training centre for potential mushroom farmers and Bula Mushroom will assist in creat­ing market opportunities for these farm­ers.

“Moving forward, we also plan to imple­ment farm to table experience for locals including tourists,” she added.

The school manager, Pramendra Nath said the vocational school is the first secondary school in Fiji to venture into Mushroom Cultivation.

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