Farmers Venture into Mushroom Farming

New farmers have been encouraged to enter and engage in mushroom farming, for its many potential.

Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Waterways, Tomasi Tunabuna, said mushroom was a new, but, financially attractive farming venture.

He said the ministry had initiated model mushroom training initiatives over previous years to encourage learning in this farming technique.

Nacula Village in Labasa is part of the mushroom planting training initiative.

He said the hotel industry in Fiji purchase a good quantity of mushroom for their cuisine purposes and the demand is high.

Mr Tunabuna said we have to think about food security not just the common ones, but, those that can bring new income.

Many sugarcane farmers have switched to rice farming in an effort to improve their income opportunities.

Last week the Waiqele Rice Farmers Cooperative was urged to increase rice production.

He called for patience to prevail and farmers to apply for farming implements such as rice harvester to grow more.

Cooperative vice-president, Bas Deo, supported the kind advise of the minister’s and remarked that they will increase rice production because of mechanical rice harvester assistance.

A team from the agricultural office will visit Nacula Village next week to check on the progress of the mushroom farming training.

They had built a green house where samples of varieties of mushrooms were grown as trials.

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