People in Muzaffarpur now call Manorama Singh the Mushroom Queen, but that title did not come easily. There was a time she had to travel nearly 50 kilometres to Pusa Agricultural University in Samastipur just to buy mushroom spawn, booking her order months in advance and paying for it upfront. Today the same Manorama prepares spawn herself in her own lab and supplies 200 to 400 kilograms of it every day to buyers across Bihar, several other states and Nepal.
A supply problem that sparked a business
Manorama says that in the early days of her mushroom farming, the biggest obstacle was simply getting hold of good quality spawn. Pusa Agricultural University was the only reliable source available, so every order meant a trip there, an advance booking and upfront payment. To get past this problem, she trained in spawn production herself and set up her own lab at her maternal home in Bakhra-Abhichhapra village in Muzaffarpur's Saraiya block. That lab has now been running continuously for 12 years.
Her spawn now travels from Bihar to Nepal
The spawn produced in her lab today reaches buyers in Muzaffarpur, various districts across Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Nepal. Around 500 farmers are directly associated with her, growing mushrooms using the spawn she prepares. This spares them the same running around that Manorama herself once had to endure. Her lab currently produces spawn for button mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, king oyster mushrooms and paddy straw mushrooms.
A fully scientific production process
According to Manorama, the entire spawn preparation process follows a scientific method. Wheat is first cleaned thoroughly and boiled, then dried. Calcium carbonate and calcium sulphate are then mixed in before the mixture is packed into polybags. These bags are sterilised in an autoclave machine for about two hours and 15 minutes. Once cooled, mushroom culture is introduced using a laminar air flow machine. After this process, oyster mushroom spawn is ready for use in about seven days, while button mushroom spawn takes roughly 15 days to be ready.
Nearly five lakh rupees in profit every month
Manorama says that spawn sales alone bring her a profit of close to five lakh rupees every month. She believes that if farmers adopt the right technique and use quality seed, mushroom farming can become a source of good income even at low cost. A woman who once depended entirely on others for spawn now meets the needs of hundreds of farmers herself, and her journey has become a source of inspiration for many farmers and women across the region.
