J.M. SinghRajdeep Singh2017-06-152017-06-152013http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810020506Punjab 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.ennullThesis