AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF MUSHROOM PRODUCTION IN PUNJAB
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Date
2013
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Abstract
Punjab predominantly being an agrarian economy resulted in ushering an era of green
revolution during seventies of previous century. However, during last decades, the stagnating farm
incomes prompted Punjab’s peasantry for undertaking subsidiary occupations of farming such as
mushroom growing. Keeping this in view, the present study was planned to examine the costreturn
structure of white button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus), factors affecting its value
productivity and marketing mechanism in the Punjab state. Two districts, namely Amritsar and
Gurdaspur, were selected which were having maximum concentration of mushroom growers and a
sample of 80 mushroom growers were interviewed for the study. Also, to examine the marketing
structure of mushrooms, equal number of wholesalers and retailers were randomly selected from
Amritsar and Gurdaspur markets. Mushroom growers were divided into three categories on the
basis of bed area spawned using cumulative cube root frequency method. The results revealed that
majority of the mushroom growers were medium category farmers who took up mushroom
growing to supplement their family income. Economic analysis brought out that non-recurring and
recurring expenditure per square metre of bed area spawned declined with increase in mushroom
farm size due to the economies of scale. Labor use pattern inferred that picking, packing and
composting were labour intensive operations utilizing about 80 per cent of the total labour force
employed. Gross returns were higher on medium mushroom farms due to comparatively higher
average price realized by the growers while net returns were higher on large mushroom farms due
to lower total cost. Input-output ratio was highest (1.80) on large mushroom farms while lower on
medium (1.47) and small (1.35) mushroom farm categories. The regression analysis inferred that
factors augmenting value productivity of mushroom were; judicious use of pesticides, labour use
in picking, packing and casing operations. Marketing pattern revealed that the net price received
by the growers was highest in producer-consumer channel while the marketing agency through
which major chunk of produce transected was wholesaler. The production and marketing
problems faced by mushroom growers were; inadequate and poor quality of spawn, lack of
assured market, price fluctuation, lack of canning and processing units and refrigerated storage.
The study emphasized the need of creating awareness regarding availability of crop loan for
mushroom growing among marginal and small farmers, training needs of growers for disinfection
of mushroom growing sheds, need of mechanized compost preparation plant, canning and
refrigeration facility and creating awareness among masses about nutritional importance of
mushrooms to increase its consumption.
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