By Herbert Musoke
Adding value to raw farm products helps diversification as this allows farmers to improve their product range, catering to different consumer segments and market needs.
Abel Kiddu, the best farmer winner, says as his farm kept on growing, they continued learning, more especially on how they could preserve, but also make products from mushrooms that can fetch more money.
According to Kiddu, one of the ways of adding value to mushrooms is drying them under the sun, which he says is easy since they dry quickly.
“From 10kg of fresh mushrooms, we get 1kg of dried ones, and once they are well-dried and stored, they can last for more than a year. A kilogramme of dried mushrooms goes for sh70,000, which means you will have added on sh10,000 on your income, although the market for dried mushrooms is still low,” he adds.
Other products are powdered mushroom, which can be mixed in all types of sauce and in hot drinking water, especially for the elderly to boost their energy. Mushrooms can also be used to make jelly (a 150gm jelly tin costs sh6,000).
For wine, one would need 5kg of fresh mushrooms to make 20 litres.
He says just like wine made from other products, the one from mushrooms goes through several steps too, especially filtering, which takes two weeks until it matures, usually in a year.
A 300ml bottle costs sh20,000. For wine, a 20-litre jerrycan can produce 66 bottles of 300mls.
Kiddu produces up to 10 containers of 240 litres each at different maturity stages.
