Nearly 400 Jawzjan women self-reliant in mushroom farming

SHIBERGHAN (Pajhwok): A number of women in northern Jawzjan province, who have become self-reliant in cultivation of mushrooms, have called on the government to train them on how to grow other vegetables.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock has launched a training program for women in Jawzjan, where so far 380 women have been trained how to grow mushrooms in the past six years.

Marghuba, a woman who earns a living by cultivating mushrooms, said: “I’m one of the women in Jawzjan who first cultivated mushroom six years ago and it yielded six times.”

However, she complained they faced problems in selling their crops and their sales had low market.

She urged the agriculture department to train them in cultivating other crops as well because with mushroom cultivation their economic situation had improved.

Meanwhile, Khadija, another woman, said: “The agriculture department in the first days of the training provided us with the seeds and equipment free and helped us.”

She said in their areas about 15 more women were also growing mushrooms.

“We the farming women have been able to harvest mushroom crop 12 times since the beginning of this year, and each woman earned more than 10,000afs.”

She said they wanted to ask the government to train them how to grow other crops because they were interested in growing any kind of crop.

Qari Ebadullah Ansar, director of agriculture, told Pajhwok Afghan News that six years ago, 15 women were first included in a training program for the mushroom cultivation as a test.

“When the plant was first sowed in the city of Shiberghan, it gave a positive result and in order to further cultivate this plant we engaged more women from poor families.”

He added the agriculture department cooperated with women to buy and sell their crops.

He informed currently at least 380 women in Shiberghan were engaged in the cultivation of mushrooms and earning a living this way.