インド北東部僻地に希望溢れる未来を。きのこ栽培で収入向上を目指す！

Let the North East Indian village shine!

Income generation project by growing mushroom

together with local villagers

INTRODUCTION: Khoupum, Manipur where the minority tribe lives in, we shall strive for the income generation of the local villagers by introducing mushroom cultivation methods

Hi, everyone! My name is Eri Gangmei. I am currently living in the rural valley called Khoupum which is located in the state of Manipur, North East India. Before explaining about my project, please allow me to introduce myself a bit. From 2012 to 2016, I was staying in Allahabad district (presently Prayag Raj) in North India, and working in the Japanese NPO (Non-Profit Organisation) which strived for the improvement of rural area of Allahabad district. In 2017, I settled down in Manipur after I had got married with my husband who belongs to Rongmei Naga tribe which has been registered as the Scheduled Tribe by the Indian Central Government. I moved to Khoupum with my family in 2019 since I had been appointed as the principal at the Private School in the area. From then on, my husband and I have been engaged in pursing for the betterment for the children and youth in Khoupum.

In Khoupum where approximately 51,538 residents are registered in the census, the majority of people is Rongmei Naga of Scheduled Tribe who also reside in neighbour states of Manipur such as Assam and Nagaland.

Khoupum is the nature rich valley surrounded by beautiful mountains. Most villagers are engaged in the rice cultivation and the vast rice filed in the plain area can be fully covered by the rich green rice seedling during the busy agricultural season.  

 

On the other hand, villagers who live in the hill area have practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, the farming method in which forests are burned, as a result the layer of ash provides the newly-cleared land with nutrient-rich layer to help fertilise crops. However, because in Khoupum, almost all villagers depend on agriculture alone for their livelihood, the economy has not developed much there. In fact, not only the school where I have been working as the principal, but all the schools in Khoupum are faced with the same issue that a large number of the students’ families is unable to pay the school tuition fees regularly and on time.

What can I do to make their life more stable?

Together with my husband who had participated in organic farming trainings in the past, we have come to the decision to implement an income generation project by disseminating the mushroom cultivation skills to the needy village people.

    

   

My husband and I have agreed that mushroom cultivation will be effective when we can utilise enough natural resources in Khoupum surrounded by the mountains and that the warm and humid climate in Khoupum can make the mushroom cultivation more successful than other places.   

THE BEGINNING: Mushroom cultivation can contribute not just to Income generation but also to environment protection and increase in job employment opportunities for the youth

What do you think of when you hear the word “North East India”? 

I wonder many of you may hear it for the first time.

When you look at the Indian map, it can be observed that Bangladesh come into sight on the eastern side of Indian subcontinent. North East India is far eastern side of Indian subcontinent after Bangladesh. North East Indian is connected with western side of India after Bangladesh by Siliguri Corridor which is only just 32km width. North East India is consist of seven states including Assam, Megalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Arnachal Pradesh, and all these seven states care called “Seven Sisters”. Seven Sisters are mixed with hundreds of languages and over hundreds of tribes and migrants from other Indian states. Many visitors describe the North East India as “the most unusual different India”.

 This is because the majority of Seven Sisters are not Aryan-Indian nor Dravidian-Indian, but Mongoloid-Indian. They just look familiar to Japanese people like me, since their facial characteristics are just similar to the Japanese ones.

 

One of the Seven Sister states, Manipur has a border with Myanmar. While the state capital Imphal is the valley, most of the land is hill area in the state. Khoupum is a very rare case, so that as the name of the area can tell us, it is a valley area.

In the main bazaar which is located along with the main road of Khoupum valley, you can see there are several stores on each side of road which sell life’s essentials. Grocery stores selling snacks, juices and daily necessities, small-scale stalls, individual sellers who purchase and sell second hand clothes, broiler and piggery business and sales of slaughtered animal meats, – they started their own business by themselves. However, others especially in the remote villages far away from the main bazaar depend on cultivation and sale of cash crops such as chillies for making their living. In fact, the chilly production has decreased in the last few years due to the climate change, and the household income is always tense in those area. In this situation, the household tries to make ends meet by failing to pay the tuition fees of their children for the time being. This also causes some problems including inability to provide the school’s staff salary regularly and difficulty to maintain the school administration. In the worst case, some households have to give up sending their children to the school.

Besides, it is said that Khoupum is famous for the rice cultivation which can be done in the vast plain field, but remote villages are located in the hill area, and those who live in the area mostly do not possess their own land and engage in the slash-and-burn cultivation in the forest. Considering the Global Warming, water scarcity and recent population growth, soil protection and planting more trees are discussed as more important for the majority of the villagers and it would be quite difficult to continue slash-and-burn cultivation sustainably in a long term.

Moreover, while there are numbers of villagers who work in the government sectors and have stable income, others who did not complete the higher education are faced with a tough situation. Because there is limited job opportunity in the village, they do not have the stable job, and just spend some time by roaming around the village.

Khoupum is blessed with relatively warm and humid climate compared with other places in the Manipur. In fact, wild mushroom can be found in the local forest, and the villagers harvest them for consuming on their own and selling to other household. Naturally grown mushrooms are limited to the season of less rainfall and warm weather. If a certain humid and temperature can be maintained and the environment where moisture can be provided appropriately for the whole year, it is possible to cultivate and harvest mushroom in all seasons. As it has been mentioned, since Khoupum is surrounded by mountains and the rice cultivation is practiced in the plain area, it is easily accessible to the wood materials for the mushroom house construction and rice straws and saw dusts for planting the mushroom spores.  

In 2019 when I started working in the local private school for the first time, the school organised special skill development class for the senior students where my husband as a leader gave training on mushroom cultivation. We successfully harvested mushroom regularly and continued harvesting consecutively 4 months. 

Therefore, this project will renovate and improve the mushroom cultivation house which was used in 2019, and also will organise the mushroom cultivation skill training particularly for needy villagers including those whose income is tense, disable people, single parents and those who have not have stable job, in order to lead them to consecutively cultivate and harvest the mushroom at their own house. By implementing this project, we believe that they can make important foundation for generating the stable income. Again by constructing the mushroom cultivation house near from their own house, they do not need to depend on slash-and-burn agriculture. We consider that this project may not only bring about the increase in income and improvement in the living standard but also environmental protection. We would like to request everyone to help us to launch this project which is brought into being under these circumstances.

 

===>>> Continue to the part II