They, “Queen Of Cultured Mushrooms” – Me, I’m Dreaming Of A “Village Queen Of Cultured Mushrooms”

Facebook sharing: Above, Villa Cortes Criollo Farm celebrates Minerva Newman’s claim that “Bohol’s Leading Farmer Scientist Is Queen Of Cultured Mushrooms[1]” (06 September 2020, agriculture.com.ph). I would have been 100 times happier if the claim is “Bohol’s Leading Farmer Scientist Is Queen of Cultured Mushrooms Of 100 Families.”

1 vs 100. You can declare yourself Queen of The Farm of Cultured Mushrooms because you own it, while you will have to struggle mightily to be the Queen of 100 Village Farms of Cultured Mushrooms.
(mushroom image[2] from Pinterest)

Under “The New Thinking for Agriculture” of Agriculture Secretary William Dar, clustering of farms is emphasized as an approach to working in agriculture. Last year, Mr Dar announced one of the approaches to carry out The New Thinking (TNT) according to the DA news release: “Farm Clustering, Consolidation Needed To Level Up Agri Sector[3]” (04 June 2020, da.gov.ph). A feature story like that on Ms Rona, while she deserves the honor, merely glorifies spectacular solo performances – not shared village victories. Miss Rona is raising her mushrooms in her 2.5-ha farm in the village of Sambog, Corella, Bohol Province. Production, her earnings not shared with the villagers.

Still, Miss Rona’s way with the mushrooms is complicated. She says:

… You need (well-managed) humidity and well-ventilated sheds surrounded by natural pest repellants plants such as cultivated basil, ginger, and wild basil… pests are managed right to let these fungi (mushrooms) grow so well the whole year round.

Miss Rona’s business needs much work. Like, she needs a particular mushroom-growing house to accommodate thousands of fruiting bags for her oyster mushroom. She has 4,000 such bags; she must by hand fill up each fruiting bag with the substrate – which is rice stalks she has previously chopped to pieces. Of course, she must introduce the mushroom seedpieces bag by bag. She needs to practice much care and a lot of presence of mind.

Miss Minerva says:

In a short tour in the facility, Rona showed a huge pile of rejected fruiting bags, one that costs about P20 each, and a reminder at how carelessness and diversion from the very scientific procedure can cause a production failure.

Ms Rona’s success story is Individual Development; what I’m interested in, as Mr Dar has envisioned, is Inclusive Development, with more families sharing in the economic rewards, not just one family. In Ms Rona’s story, the individual grows rich; the rest of the village does not. The life of an individual farmer levels up, not that of a whole farming village.

I also have something to say about Miss Rona’s choice of mushroom and method of culture. I myself prefer the banana mushroom, which is a thousand times much easier to raise – and more pleasant to my taste.

If all the families in the whole village of Sambog were taught how to raise banana mushrooms with the leadership of Ms Rona, it would redound to a village development project. And I would clap my hands from afar!@LIBs

 


[1]https://www.agriculture.com.ph/2020/09/06/bohols-leading-farmer-scientist-is-queen-of-cultured-mushrooms/?fbclid=IwAR1Dvg_jLnWtLJ-y6HrEOu8IqO0UhL_b4Q7EBoSSNcS1aU4E9p62oOU7ymY

[2]https://www.pinterest.ph/?show_error=true

[3]https://www.da.gov.ph/farm-clustering-consolidation-needed-to-level-up-agri-sector/

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