Mushroom Growing

Mrs. Touch Sovanna lives in Beng Village, Anlong VillageCommune, Sangkae District. She’s 45 years old and has a daughter and her mother living with her. She has no land other than the site of her house, for like many others, land has been sold to pay for funerals and other events. Before the VSTP training Sovanna provided childcare in her house and was paid 25$ per month by her neighbor to do this

Her Commune Council worked with the Community Development Specialist from the Provincial Training Center to choose training activities that would do the most to improve family income. With a number of village markets close by, the Council choose vegetable and mushroom growing as well as fish breeding and a variety of small trades such as bicycle repair and Outfitting (wedding management).

The PTC found a trainer in mushroom farming and put together a one week training package that included sufficient mushroom growing stock for each graduate to get started. The training took place in a nearby village that was reasonably central for the 25 individuals who were interested. She learned how to prepare her own growing mix and has a very clean and well organized growing operation as you can see in the picture. The trainer came back after a month to make sure that all the graduates were being successful.

Sovanna now earns between $7 and $8.75 per day selling her mushrooms at $8.75 per 10 kilos in the market about 2 kilometers from her house. She goes there herself each day with her mother or daughter rather than selling to a middleman. As her production increases, she is considering using middlemen for more distant markets but she will loose about 15% of her revenue if she does this. She hopes her daughter can help her decide the longer term prices she needs to charge as she expands her business. Like many of 60,000 villagers who have now completed VSTP, her life has changed, her family is living well and she is prepared to teach others how to do mushroom growing….in other villages!

The next step for the Touch household is learning how to dry the mushrooms or package them so they can reach the larger Provincial market. There is no one in the area now who knows how to do this so she has asked her Commune Chief to make a request to the PTC for this skill.