What are the prospects for the mushroom industry? A small mushroom grown into a big industry
At 9 a.m. on May 25, 2016, in the courtyard of Inner Mongolia Grassland Chuanfu Edible Fungi Co., Ltd., south of the Jalaid Banner Industrial Park and east of the expressway, as a ceremonial salute sounded, the launch ceremony of the university student entrepreneurship incubation base and the high-value-added edible fungi industry targeted poverty alleviation program of Grassland Chuanfu Edible Fungi Co., Ltd. in Yindeer Town, Jalaid Banner, Inner Mongolia was announced as beginning.
Zhang Xu, general manager of Grassland Chuanfu Edible Fungi Co., Ltd., first gave everyone a report on the company's development, and then led everyone to visit the mushroom storage warehouse, the mushroom spawn production workshop, the reishi production workshop, the mushroom cultivation base, and so on.
A small mushroom has been grown into a big industry!
Zhang Xu, general manager of Grassland Chuanfu Edible Fungi Co., Ltd., returned to his hometown in March 2015. Through investigating the local resource conditions, he found that no one in this area was producing edible fungi, and that developing an edible fungi production project was a good project with low investment, high returns, ecological benefits, and job promotion, bringing many benefits to local development. Using the mushroom cultivation techniques he had learned, he produced spawn, and in 2015 a total of 30 mu of trial planting was carried out in the Wujiahu area and the Central Forest Farm, achieving success.
The economic benefits of mushroom cultivation: investment per mu is 3000—5000 yuan (3000 yuan for spawn, 1000 yuan for substrate, 1000 yuan for labor), yield per mu is more than 4000 kg, and calculating each jin of mushrooms at a minimum of 2 yuan, the net benefit per mu is more than 4000 yuan, ten times that of corn.
Mushroom cultivation also brings many social benefits:
1. It effectively solves the problem of open-field burning of straw. (The nutrients required for cultivating edible fungi are all waste materials such as straw and corn cobs, and 5 tons of substrate need to be applied per mu.)
2. Using forest land to cultivate mushrooms fully solves the problem of idle open space under the forest and conforms to the development of under-forest economy.
3. This year he also developed a cultivation model of interplanting mushrooms in cornfields. This model plays an ecological role in protecting the black soil by improving the black soil, enriching the black soil, and eliminating soil compaction, while also increasing farmers' economic income.
4. In the mushroom production and processing process, making mushroom sticks and bagging them, as well as trimming the roots of harvested mushrooms, both require a large amount of labor. It is a labor-intensive industry and has fully driven local villagers' employment.
Seeing that mushroom cultivation had so many benefits, in November 2015 Zhang Xu and partners who were confident in this undertaking jointly registered and established Jalaid Banner Grassland Chuanfu Edible Fungi Co., Ltd., with registered capital of 2 million yuan. In 2016 it was again registered as Inner Mongolia Grassland Chuanfu Edible Fungi Co., Ltd. Grassland Chuanfu Edible Fungi Co., Ltd. currently mainly deals in Stropharia rugosoannulata and reishi. While studying mushroom cultivation, Zhang Xu also devoted himself to researching reishi cultivation techniques, and believes that in the near future reishi will also be produced in large quantities.
In 2016, the standardized mushroom cultivation of Grassland Chuanfu Edible Fungi Co., Ltd. reached 272 mu. The cultivation models adopted four types: forest land cultivation, cornfield interplanting, farm household courtyard cultivation, and greenhouse cultivation. Product sales have already reached Beijing, Harbin, Daqing, Qiqihar, Tongliao, Ulanhot, and Jalaid Banner and other places, while foreign sales are mainly to South Korea and other countries. Product production and processing adopt a company + farmer cooperative cultivation model, forming a "production, supply, and sales" joint order chain.
Zhang Xu's plan for future development is to reach industrialized cultivation of 1000 mu in 2017 and 2000 mu in 2018. The company team firmly believes that with Inner Mongolia as the core, mushrooms on the grassland will certainly go nationwide!