Why Rotich believes this is the sector to keep an eye on

Mushrooms have been associated with various myths and attributes across cultures. Ancient Egyptians believed they bestowed immortality. Romans and Greeks assigned special powers to them.

Like it is done today, ancient people picked them mainly for culinary purposes, but others valued them for folk medicine, hallucinogenic reasons and for recreation.

Not leaving Kenya behind in its gracious bequests, this plant catapulted Mr Daniel Rotich to fame when he ventured into mushroom farming three years ago at Kapseret on the outskirts of Eldoret town.

“When I was at university, mushroom technology units were my favourite topics,” said the 62-year-old Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari) employee, who is currently on contract employment with Western Kenya Community Driven Development/Flood Mitigation Project, and NGO.

“Now that retirement is knocking on my door, I have had to think of something exciting and resourceful to do,” he says.

This something “exciting and resourceful” proved to be mushrooms. Mr Rotich engaged an agronomist, Mr James Kiboi, as manager, and a leading mushroom technician, Mr Jacton Otieno — who boasts more than 25 years of experience in fungi culture and mushroom cultivation.

Mr Otieno earlier worked with a mushroom company based in Eldoret before moving to another one in Limuru in 1998, where he stayed until Mr Rotich “poached” him in 2011.

There are over 3,000 mushroom species worldwide, some edible and others poisonous. Hericiumcoralloides, boletus edulis, button, oyster and portabella are always ready for cooking. The white button mushroom does well in Africa’s tropical climate.

Edible mushrooms are available in different shapes, ages, colours, textures and tastes. Most brown and white ones are ready to cook while yellow and purple mushrooms require conditional preparation to taste.

Overgrown mushroom may not be good to serve while hard-to-press varieties are also good unlike soft ones, which could be rotting. Mushrooms can be dried or eaten fresh. Del’s farm supplies both of these.

Del’s Farm cultivates button, oyster and portabella mushrooms under the supervision of Mr Otieno, who took the Seeds of Gold team through the cultivation technology when we visited the farm.

It involves an intensive preparation process needing particular conditions such as the environment found around termite colonies where wild mushrooms naturally grow.

A bale of grass or wheat hay is watered and overturned every two days for 14 days. When soft and soaked, the compost is mixed with one kilogramme of urea to provide nitrogenous nutrients; cotton seed meal cake for temperature regulation; molasses to provide creeping medium for spawns; malt of potash; and gypsum lime stone to absorb excess water and enhance aeration of the sticky substrate.

The end product is mixed with the mushroom cobweb-like “seeds” called the spawn. Seven to eight kilogrammes of the compost is then packed into large transparent polythene tubes and transferred to incubation rooms. Mr Rotich has constructed a two-storey building of six spacious rooms that can accommodate over 5,000 such bags.

To induce germination, the windows of these rooms are locked to raise temperatures and watered to achieve optimum humidity. The bags are left in this state for 14 days.

Meanwhile, murram and loamy forest soil are mixed in a 1:1 ratio and then sterilised by heating up to 60ºC for two hours to kill pathogens, pesticides and weeds.

After overnight cooling, a two centimetre thick layer of the heated mixture is spread on top of the compost bag.

The temperature in the growing room is then dropped to 15-17 ºC whereas humidity is regulated by an electric humidifier installed in each room.

The dark incubation rooms bring to mind the dark caves ancient Greeks and Romans are said to have cultivated their own mushrooms in.

Harvesting is done by picking mature mushroom daily or as they ripen. This continues until the output starts to decline. To aid in this, Mr Rotich employs 20 casual workers and five permanent ones.

After harvest, the team then packs fresh mushroom fruits in small 250g pallets, selling each tray at Sh250. One entire harvest of 6-7 flushes yields 1.5 tons in a fortnight. Coming to the harvest does not mean the end of everything.

Could not satisfy the market

After this, the packaged composed is heaped in the open air to dry. The dry soil substrate is then crashed, treated and packed in 50kg bags that are sold at Sh2000.

Mr Rotich explains that he tried to export his mushroom to Dubai and the Middle East but his harvest of three tonnes in a month could not satisfy the market.

The father of three, therefore, intends to open a Practical Training Centre to accommodate up to 50 learners. The infrastructure for this is already in place.

“For export, a constant volume of mushrooms is required,” says Mr Rotich “I need farmers to support this required volume which is why I want to train more farmers beginning April this year.”

Mr Rotich intends to collaborate with the Department of Agriculture, Moi University, to offer diploma and certificate courses in mushroom technology.

“He wants society to benefit from mushroom cultivation because mushroom production is steadily dropping in the world market,” says his manager, Mr Kiboi, who attributes the low supply of mushrooms to the degradation of their natural habitat due to human settlement, global warming and desertification.

In terms of consumption, mushrooms have not yet made their way across the population. Mr Rotich says that mushrooms are mostly seen to be a preserve of the rich and are found in five-star hotels rather than village eateries.

He cites four hotels in Eldoret town which have the nutritious vegetable in their menu, with a plate of mushroom soup going for Sh200. In the neighbouring Kapsabet town, no single hotel sells mushrooms.

This is a trend which could quickly change as globalisation makes Kenyans more open to foods previously perceived to be exotic.
Mr Rotich thinks the mushroom sector is one to keep an eye on.