Don Bosco Tech Society, Sambalpur Center arranged the 1st guest lecturer session for Mushroom Grower (Batch-7, Accenture-12) job role on November 29, 2022. The designated topic for the above-mentioned session was “Cultivation of Oyster and Paddy Mushroom”. The guest lecture began with a welcome address by the domain trainer Mr. Dillip Kumar Behera. He introduced and welcomed Ms. Anjali Badi from Vinayak Mushroom farm to deliver the lecture.

Ms. Anjali deliberated completely on various aspects, factors, and types of mushrooms to be grown in different seasons of the year. She furthered the session by explaining various stages of oyster mushroom cultivation such as the advantages of growing oyster mushrooms, environmental requirements, material requirements, harvesting, and economics of oyster mushroom cultivation. She enlightens trainees by giving the advantages of Paddy straw mushrooms by explaining the production cost for starting the cultivation as a small farm of mushrooms at home. She also emphasized the trainees about the importance of self-employment and its value addition to a family in terms of livelihood. Mushrooms are cultivated indoors and do not require arable land. Small farmers and landless workers constitute major fraction of mushroom cultivation. India with a population of over one billion people; has a vast domestic market for mushrooms. Mushroom production has a labour-intensive nature and low labour cost is the biggest advantage of India she said.

In the later part of the session, trainees interacted in the session with a keen interest and raised questions about how to make a career in the field of cultivation of oysters and paddy mushrooms. Ms. Anjali also gave a few tips on how to prevent spillage during the process of production. Trainees were very enthusiastic and energetic throughout the session. Ms. Anjali was very amazed by the participation and interest showed by the participants in the program.

Ms. Anjali summed up the session by answering queries and deliberating on the enormous scope for self-employment leading to a decent livelihood for a mushroom grower. The session ended with a hearty thanks to Ms. Anjali by Mr. Sarada Prasad Nanda in appreciation for taking the time out to educate the trainees.