Purulia having huge forest cover, houses lakhs of tribals who are directly or indirectly dependent on the forest only. On one hand these tribals are protecting the forest and on the other hand they are dependent on forest only, resulting in some destruction as well.
Secondly, millions of tourists who come here to see the natural beauty of “Sundari Purulia”, demand local foods. Mushroom has the highest demand among them.
Speaking with Indian Masterminds, IFS officer Debashish Sharma who is the DFO, Purulia forest division said. “While, hotels here purchase mushroom from market and cooking it in the name of local wild mushroom. Hence, we thought that why don’t poor tribal women of Purulia start growing mushrooms at their homes and sell authentic product to the hoteliers and resort owners.”
HOMEGOWN MUSHROOM CULTIVATION
Mr Sharma along with his team thus started a project under “Livelihood Activities component of Green India Mission Scheme” where 70 tribal women of SHGs from Forest Fringe Joint Forest Management Committee (JFMC) of Ajodhya Hill under Purulia Forest Division were given two days of hand on training/workshop on “How to do Mushroom Cultivation” at their home with minimum cost. “We engaged Technical Resource Person from a private Company to impart training in mushroom cultivation,” Mr. Sharma said.
FACILITIES PROVIDED
Mr Sharma’s team provides raw materials kits to do the cultivation at their home. Apart from this, they have also facilitated the market linkage by involving local hoteliers and resort owners who would directly purchase this final Mushroom product from these women thus removing any kind of middlemen.
With this project each family is earning minimum of 8-10,000/- per month which is an additional source of income from them.
REGULAR MONITORING
Also, to ensure the success of this initiative, they are utilizing social media platforms like WhatsApp to popularize their project. A group has been created where Resource Person, Tribal women SHG leaders & members (having Phone with WhatsApp feature), Hoteliers and the Forest Beat Officer would be there so that regular monitoring, present status, production sale and purchase etc. discussion get facilitated.
They are also looking to train few of these women as resource persons so that in future, they themselves train other tribal women on Mushroom Cultivation training, thus making it more sustainable in future.
This initiative solves two purposes. Firstly, this will not only enhance the family income of these tribal families but also empower these women as well as help to conserve the forest.
Secondly, since they traditionally go into forest to cut small trees to sell in the market as firewood, now with an alternative source of income, they would give up this destructive activity gradually leading to better forest conservation.
