MycoRant

Good on the man who wakes up one morning and says to himself, “You know, poaching sucks. I think I’ll try mushroom farming.” Apparently that is just what some poachers are saying in Thailand these days (er, sort of, maybe?)

This according to an AFP article (and I don’t know exactly what AFP is, although the article it is hosted by Google), Thai poachers turn funghi farmers to save forests by Claire Truscott.

Thailand’s lush jungles are under daily attack by illegal loggers and poachers, but conservationists in the country’s northeast are turning to an unlikely remedy — the common mushroom. A project that turns former wildlife criminals into funghi farmers is proving a surprising success, giving villagers a decent wage while helping to slow the destruction of forests in the Khao Yai National Park, a World Heritage Site. Under the scheme, set up by Thailand’s Freeland foundation, Nuan now has her own business as a mushroom farmer and no longer relies on precious rosewood, prized for its perfumed sap, as her only means of regular income.

Judging from the pictures, it looks like a weird and inefficient method of growing oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus sp.). They are grown in bags stacked on their sides and in the pictures provided, there is a single long-stemmed mushroom growing out of a small opening in the end of each bag.

The article states that the mushroom growers cannot meet the local demand and the project organizers want to expand the project. From the looks of it, if they would grow them differently they would likely have a much better chance of meeting the demand.

Tags: mushroom growing, oyster mushroom, poachers, sustainable agriculture, Thailand