Something’s mushrooming, literally, in the rural town of San Enrique, Iloilo: a Mushroom Industry Development Project, led by the siblings of the now mayor, retired General (PA) Ramona Palabrica-Go. Mr. Joe Cape, husband of the mayor’s sister, Amy, manages the farm which is co-financed by brother Greg Palabrica, still based in the US. The Palabrica siblings, all of them retired or retiring respectively from their careers have decided collectively to give back to the town and their town-mates in whatever way possible. They have registered their family enterprise as San Enrique Agri-venture (S.E.A.) Enterprise.
Mayor Palabrica- Go was the first to decide when she ran and won as Mayor of the town. The others decided on the mushroom project because of two basic reasons: it is a healthy food touted to be medicinal and that everybody who engages in the project can earn money. The project will also be the first of the many they have envisioned for the town.
The first investment is in the laboratory and the growing building. The major concern of mushroom production is in the availability of quality spawns.With a small laboratory, the project is assured of a regular supply of spawns. The growing area should also be cool, sanitized and free from contaminants since mushrooms, especially the oyster species are sensitive to the environment.
To perfect the technology, Joe went through a short course at UPLB and tapped the services of Mr. Bert Cablas, a teacher-entrepreneur based in San Miguel, Iloilo who had been successfully growing oyster mushrooms for more than 15 years and is the major supplier of supermarkets and hotels in Iloilo City. Bert Cablas transferred his technology to them unselfishly.
Producing Oyster Mushroom.
Joe follows the standard technology for producing oyster mushroom spawns. The spawns are first cultured in Potato Dextrose Agar medium and then transferred to a sorghum bed inside a sterilized whiskey or rum bottles. Once the mycelium have grown and ready for culture they are seeded to fruiting bags of sterilized saw dust based culture media and placed in the growing chambers. In two to three weeks, the mushroom buttons start to form mycelia and emerge from the tiny holes cut on all sides of the plastic fruiting bags.
In a few more days, the mushroom buttons emerge from the holes and start to grow. In three to four days, the mushrooms have fully grown and are ready to harvest. The fully grown mushrooms are fully pulled out of the holes they have grown in to avoid rotting and contaminating the rest of the fruiting bags.
The harvested oyster mushroom are sorted, cleaned and weighed according to the packaging. 125 gram packs are sold at P35.00/pack while 250 gram packs are sold at P65.00. Kilogram packs sell at P250.00 ex farm
At present, the farm produces 7-10 kilograms daily on about 7,000 fruiting bags. The building has a capacity of 20,000 bags capable of producing between 20-25 kilograms daily. Joe is now developing the market for the fresh mushroom. The present harvest is not even enough to fill the demand in the community but Joe is already exploring the market of Passi City which is about 4.5 kilometers away. Efforts are also being made to develop other forms of products so that all the produce of the farms and ultimately, the farmer-cooperators will be sold out and both the enterprise and the farmer cooperators are able to realize stable income from the industry.
Grow-out and Reach Out Scheme:
Mayor Ramona Palabric-Go is keen on the project because of the high returns for the industry participants. Right now, she is hard at work launching livelihood projects so that the constituents of her town who are landless but have a few square meters of space in their yards can avail of the grow-out program where the S.E.A. will provide them with ready to grow fruiting bags at a low price while assuring them of a stable high priced market. She sees the enterprise launched by her siblings as an anchor project in mushroom production. Her sister Amy said that the laboratory is easy to expand since there is still space behind and the capacity can be increased to meet the demand for fruiting bags to be sold at cost to the unemployed housewives, out of school youth, indigenous people and other participants who want stable income from the project.
“The municipality and other concerned agencies like the DSWD will work hand in hand to train these unemployed constituents and we will find a good financing scheme where they will also invest a small fund so that there will be ‘ownership’ of the project and also to ensure that they will not think this is a dole out and therefore take good care of it”, Mayor Palabrica-Go said.
Mr. Bert Cablas, their consultant who had been in the business for a long time now said that a small mushroom livelihood is ideal for the unemployed. If one targets a daily income of P500.00, he needs to produce between 2-4 kilos of oyster mushroom daily. So he needs about 200-250 fruiting bags which can be accommodated in about 6 square meters of space.
The housing conceived will utilize roofing and walling materials like cogon and coconut leaves because they are naturally cool and serves as insulators from ambient heat. Coconut shingles are easy to make and cogon can be gathered from abandoned land so farmers and other cooperators will not need to spend much for their housing which shall be one of their counterparts.
By products of mushroom production:
The exhausted fruiting bags are ideal as growing media for ornamentals and vegetables. The farmer-cooperators can launch an additional livelihood project once the mushroom grow out has started. They can plant vegetables and high value ornamentals either in plots or in pots. The organic media is nutrient rich after it had been fully decomposed by the mushroom which is a fungus. Fungi feed on cellulose contained in sawdust resulting to a rich organic medium for plants.
The future of mushroom in San Enrique:
For more than thirty years our town had hibernated and we now have the opportunity to make things right for our people. Our farmers and entrepreneurs are focused on low value farming of rice sugarcane and corn. Coffee and cacao are a small industry but have the potential to expand. With so many sawmills in our town due to the farmed trees available, there is a large amount of sawdust which are only used as land fill. These are a resource that can earn money for mushroom farmers.
“I am upbeat about making mushroom as one of our major products. While only a limited number of our people can grow rich in sugarcane and rice, mushroom is one industry that everybody can participate and grow with”, said Mayor Palabrica-Go.
Something’s mushrooming, literally, in the rural town of San Enrique, Iloilo: a Mushroom Industry Development Project, led by the siblings of the now mayor, retired General (PA) Ramona Palabrica-Go. Mr. Joe Cape, husband of the mayor’s sister, Amy, manages the farm which is co-financed by brother Greg Palabrica, still based in the US. The Palabrica siblings, all of them retired or retiring respectively from their careers have decided collectively to give back to the town and their town-mates in whatever way possible. They have registered their family enterprise as San Enrique Agri-venture (S.E.A.) Enterprise.
Mayor Palabrica- Go was the first to decide when she ran and won as Mayor of the town. The others decided on the mushroom project because of two basic reasons: it is a healthy food touted to be medicinal and that everybody who engages in the project can earn money. The project will also be the first of the many they have envisioned for the town.
The first investment is in the laboratory and the growing building. The major concern of mushroom production is in the availability of quality spawns.With a small laboratory, the project is assured of a regular supply of spawns. The growing area should also be cool, sanitized and free from contaminants since mushrooms, especially the oyster species are sensitive to the environment.
To perfect the technology, Joe went through a short course at UPLB and tapped the services of Mr. Bert Cablas, a teacher-entrepreneur based in San Miguel, Iloilo who had been successfully growing oyster mushrooms for more than 15 years and is the major supplier of supermarkets and hotels in Iloilo City. Bert Cablas transferred his technology to them unselfishly.
Producing Oyster Mushroom.
Joe follows the standard technology for producing oyster mushroom spawns. The spawns are first cultured in Potato Dextrose Agar medium and then transferred to a sorghum bed inside a sterilized whiskey or rum bottles. Once the mycelium have grown and ready for culture they are seeded to fruiting bags of sterilized saw dust based culture media and placed in the growing chambers. In two to three weeks, the mushroom buttons start to form mycelia and emerge from the tiny holes cut on all sides of the plastic fruiting bags.
In a few more days, the mushroom buttons emerge from the holes and start to grow. In three to four days, the mushrooms have fully grown and are ready to harvest. The fully grown mushrooms are fully pulled out of the holes they have grown in to avoid rotting and contaminating the rest of the fruiting bags.
The harvested oyster mushroom are sorted, cleaned and weighed according to the packaging. 125 gram packs are sold at P35.00/pack while 250 gram packs are sold at P65.00. Kilogram packs sell at P250.00 ex farm
At present, the farm produces 7-10 kilograms daily on about 7,000 fruiting bags. The building has a capacity of 20,000 bags capable of producing between 20-25 kilograms daily. Joe is now developing the market for the fresh mushroom. The present harvest is not even enough to fill the demand in the community but Joe is already exploring the market of Passi City which is about 4.5 kilometers away. Efforts are also being made to develop other forms of products so that all the produce of the farms and ultimately, the farmer-cooperators will be sold out and both the enterprise and the farmer cooperators are able to realize stable income from the industry.
Grow-out and Reach Out Scheme:
Mayor Ramona Palabric-Go is keen on the project because of the high returns for the industry participants. Right now, she is hard at work launching livelihood projects so that the constituents of her town who are landless but have a few square meters of space in their yards can avail of the grow-out program where the S.E.A. will provide them with ready to grow fruiting bags at a low price while assuring them of a stable high priced market. She sees the enterprise launched by her siblings as an anchor project in mushroom production. Her sister Amy said that the laboratory is easy to expand since there is still space behind and the capacity can be increased to meet the demand for fruiting bags to be sold at cost to the unemployed housewives, out of school youth, indigenous people and other participants who want stable income from the project.
“The municipality and other concerned agencies like the DSWD will work hand in hand to train these unemployed constituents and we will find a good financing scheme where they will also invest a small fund so that there will be ‘ownership’ of the project and also to ensure that they will not think this is a dole out and therefore take good care of it”, Mayor Palabrica-Go said.
Mr. Bert Cablas, their consultant who had been in the business for a long time now said that a small mushroom livelihood is ideal for the unemployed. If one targets a daily income of P500.00, he needs to produce between 2-4 kilos of oyster mushroom daily. So he needs about 200-250 fruiting bags which can be accommodated in about 6 square meters of space.
The housing conceived will utilize roofing and walling materials like cogon and coconut leaves because they are naturally cool and serves as insulators from ambient heat. Coconut shingles are easy to make and cogon can be gathered from abandoned land so farmers and other cooperators will not need to spend much for their housing which shall be one of their counterparts.
By products of mushroom production:
The exhausted fruiting bags are ideal as growing media for ornamentals and vegetables. The farmer-cooperators can launch an additional livelihood project once the mushroom grow out has started. They can plant vegetables and high value ornamentals either in plots or in pots. The organic media is nutrient rich after it had been fully decomposed by the mushroom which is a fungus. Fungi feed on cellulose contained in sawdust resulting to a rich organic medium for plants.
The future of mushroom in San Enrique:
For more than thirty years our town had hibernated and we now have the opportunity to make things right for our people. Our farmers and entrepreneurs are focused on low value farming of rice sugarcane and corn. Coffee and cacao are a small industry but have the potential to expand. With so many sawmills in our town due to the farmed trees available, there is a large amount of sawdust which are only used as land fill. These are a resource that can earn money for mushroom farmers.
“I am upbeat about making mushroom as one of our major products. While only a limited number of our people can grow rich in sugarcane and rice, mushroom is one industry that everybody can participate and grow with”, said Mayor Palabrica-Go.
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