Assessment of mushroom farming in Soroti district in eastern Uganda

Abstract

The study conducted in Soroti district Eastern Uganda that focused on assessment of mushroom farming with objectives to determine factors affecting mushroom farming, to evaluate the economic performance of smallholder mushroom enterprises and targeting farming communities, 60 respondents were interviewed face to face using pretested questionnaire, the gross margins was used to establish the performance of smallholder mushroom farmers and the study revealed average gross profit of 21,081.64Ushillings per garden and Gross profit margin of 84.3% per the production time of three months with an estimated output levels provided by farmers, mushroom productivity stands at 2.5kgs per garden per production time and sold their output to direct consumers, Retailers and wholesalers at average price of the output was 10,000Ugshillings per kg of the fresh mushrooms and 50,000Ushillings for the kg of dry mushrooms. The study also revealed Attitude, knowledge gap and High prices of mushroom raw materials were the main problems affecting the enterprise growth and development and in conclusion majority of mushroom smallholder farmers were in the average age of 43.43 which is middle age with energy to carry out production with average household size of 7.73 of the mushroom farmers indicating high population density within the households requiring more food while women were occupying the highest percentage in mushroom production of 18% contributing to their Economic empowerment and Recommended The government to increase awareness in communities through sensitization on benefits of mushroom production and Subsidization of mushroom raw materials and re allocation of extension workers to the area to promote and extend more information on mushroom production to the community.