Mushroom industry supports poverty relief in Xiuwen

Guizhou Junwangfu Agricultural Sightseeing Park, located in Xiuwen county, Guiyang, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province, has contributed to local poverty reduction programs since its mushroom farm started up in 2016.

The farm has developed over 10 kinds including oyster mushrooms, ganoderma lucidums, hericium mushrooms and tricholoma matsutakes.

The agricultural sightseeing park has a total of 22 greenhouses given over to mushrooms. Last year, it cultivated 300,000 individual mushroom plants, with an output value of 1.8 million yuan ($263,520).

Related industries have helped more than 60 local villagers to find jobs nearby and spurred poor households to grow 60,000 individual mushroom.

Recently, the park received its first batch of raw materials after it resumed work and production this year.

The corn cob pellets are mainly as one of the growing substrates, or layers, used in the production of varieties such as oyster mushrooms. As the mushroom trays are put on the shelves, the first batch of fresh mushrooms are expected to be on the market in about 35 days.

Fresh mushrooms grow at Guizhou Junwangfu Agricultural Sightseeing Park in Xiuwen county. [Photo/gog.cn]

Park chief Jian Rong said the corn cobs are mainly for big order customers and the park had received many orders during the period.

But due to the novel coronavirus epidemic, the substrates could not be shipped in. Now that they are ready, production is set to be stepped up.

Jian said that from May 1, the park had big supply orders and two or three months later it will be the peak period for oyster mushroom harvesting. By then, the minimum daily output will be able to fully meet demand," he added.

Taking Guiyang Agricultural Products Logistics Park as its main sales platform, the agricultural sightseeing park plans to further expand its production scale and develop 1 million individual mushroom. The output value is expected to reach 5 million yuan this year.

Xiuwen county has further promoted its rural industrial revolution and developed its specialist sectors, including the edible mushroom industry, to boost the incomes of the poor.

To date, the county has established more than 20 mushroom bases farms and this year's plans are for them to plant 25 million individual mushroom with an expected output value of around 100 million yuan.