Expansion of Mushroom Farming in Vietnam: UXO Survivors' Assistance Program
HDI has developed a program to expand a nascent UXO Survivors' Assistance Program in Vietnam's Quang Tri province. HDI intends to develop the foundation for a modern, hi-tech mushroom farming industry that would increase the number of jobs for UXO survivors and increase their earning power. This project also calls for the development of a new partnership between the Quang Tri mushroom farmers and the $2 billion-a-year U.S. mushroom industry.
Thirty years after the War, Vietnam's Quang Tri province is one of the most mine and UXO affected provinces in the country. It is also among the poorest. From 1966 to 1975, it was subjected to one of the heaviest bombing campaigns in the history of the world. Current reports put 500,000 tons of UXO and mines in this province alone. Today, despite the surface appearance of normal daily work and other routine activities, the threat of landmines and UXO still looms just under the surface of the soil. The Government of Vietnam reports that since 1975, over 100,000 people have been either killed or wounded as a result of UXO and landmines. And with about 2,000 UXO casualties annually, Vietnam rivals both Cambodia and Angola as countries with the world's highest proportion of amputees.
In 2000, Project RENEW's Survivors' Assistance Unit launched a small mushroom growing project in Quang Tri province in partnership with the Trieu Phong Farmers Union. This project was initiated to assist UXO and landmine survivors and their families with additional income. As a result of this small program, a growing number of families now have sustainable employment and incomes. Currently, about 866 families have joined the program and are presently cultivating mushrooms at or near their homes.
The mushroom production cycle is around 8 months and all the cultivation takes place at or near the home of the enrolled family. At the moment, the mushroom growing technique is basic and rudimentary. It involves injecting liquid fungi, or mushroom spores, into small plastic bags full of sawdust. The bags have slits, from which eventually mushrooms begin to appear. Once the mushrooms have grown out of the slits, they are cut and dried. Under normal circumstances, these mushrooms are then packaged into burlap bags, taken to the nearest local market and sold. All persons in each family work well with this particular mushroom growing technique and it can be done in the family's spare time or after other crops are harvested. (Interestingly, this very small micro-business has actually spawned a second enterprise. A few entrepreneurs now collect dead rubber tree wood, chip up the wood, and sell the sawdust to the mushroom growers.)
In other, more developed parts of Vietnam, there are many large companies that collect mushrooms from individual farmers and have more advanced processing procedures for exporting them out the country. However, because of very low mushroom production to date, there are very few mushroom collection enterprises in Quang Tri. Normally, all mushroom products are sold at local markets and the rest sold to one big company in Da Nang city - about 200 km from Quang Tri Province.Simply put, Quang Tri Province does not have a master plan for mushroom production. Local authorities, however, have recognized the importance and necessity of job creation for people with disabilities and are encouraging expanded mushroom production as a feasible approach to new jobs and more income for disabled people in the province.
HDI is working with some of the most innovative and creative U.S.-based mushroom experts to write a business plan with local authorities in Quang Tri that would take mushroom farming to the next level in this province. The plan will highlight expanded job opportunities; higher income; a more professional mushroom industry infrastructure; and a strong partnership between Quang Tri mushroom farmers and the U.S. mushroom industry.
