Muslim Aid Indonesia: Harvesting Oyster Mushroom in NTB

Mushroom farmers, who are working on mushroom cultivation project under Muslim Aid Indonesia’s guide, in Tete Batu village, East Timor Sub-district of West Nusa Tenggara, is currently harvesting oyster mushrooms. Each day these farmers can harvest at least tens of kilograms of oyster mushrooms. “From a total of 4,500 mushroom growing media that were produced, farmers are now able to harvest 10-30 kilograms of mushrooms,” said Rama Aditya, Junior Field Officer Muslim Aid NTB. “This harvesting process will continue for about three months.” According to Rama, the mushrooms will be sold to the market and the surrounding communities. Furthermore, the profits will not only be used for personal necessities of the farmers, but also for funding the next cycle of cultivation. “The price of the mushrooms is IDR 20.000/kilogram. The farmers are very enthusiastic in developing this mushroom business. They will make use of the profits from the first harvest for producing more mushroom growing medium, baglog.” Rama also added that MAI will train these 90 farmers to prepare the mushrooms to be a ready-to-eat product. “We are giving them a secondary product training so that they can refine these mushroom into various kinds of food such as, mushroom satay, steamed mushroom, crispy mushroom, mushroom chips, etc.” According to Muslim Aid Indonesia, at least 224,692 of East Lombok residents live under the poverty threshold. Therefore, Muslim Aid Indonesia believe the training will be one solution to improve the community welfare. In addition, mushroom cultivation will also introduce people to climate change and disaster risk reduction in their own region. The local government also appreciates other MAI’s programs in West Nusa Tenggara, including the well construction, which provides a better access to clean and safe drinking water for the community.