An illustrated visit to RI Mushrooms in Kingston, Rhode Island to see how the mushrooms I love to eat are grown
Cartoonist and Illustrator. I write and draw about my life, movies, and culture. Queer/Trans: they/them www.jettallen.com | Insta: @jettdraws
https://tenderly.medium.com/how-to-grow-gorgeous-mushrooms-ea8fca168b94
by Elias Shilangwa
LUSAKA, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- The desire to ensure the growing and continuous supply of mushrooms prompted Stephanie Sakala, a resident of Lusaka, the Zambian capital, to undergo a mushroom training program financed by China.
Sakala, the Operations Manager at Maiwase Farm, a subsidiary of Kasalari Development Corporation, and two other workers decided to undergo oyster mushroom growing training at the China-Zambia Agricultural Technologies Demonstration Center (ATDC) in March this year.
After undergoing training, she said they started the mushrooming project in June and that she was happy with what has been achieved in such a short time.
She said the training was worthwhile and the knowledge acquired will go a long way in ensuring all-round production of mushroom unlike the traditional way of waiting for the rainy season before seeing mushrooms.
"So far we are impressed. We did not expect this much of a harvest. When we started we thought we would get less than this. We have been overwhelmed with what has come out so far," she told Xinhua.
The farm, she said, managed to harvest 20 kg of oyster mushroom in the first week which moved to 50 kg and later to over 100 kg.
While acknowledging that the market for oyster mushrooms in Zambia was still a challenge, Sakala expressed confidence that with more sensitizations, Zambians will be able to appreciate it because of the benefits it has compared to traditionally grown mushrooms.
She further commended the training center on the training it has been providing because they cater to categories of people regardless of their educational background.
On future plans, she said the farms intend to venture into the growing of other mushrooms such as Button mushrooms as well as the production of seeds as currently there is a challenge in accessing the seeds.
Sydro Simantombwe, another beneficiary of the training program and a worker at Maiwase Farm, expressed gratitude for the training provided, saying he has been empowered with a skill he can use to empower himself.
He said he will use the knowledge acquired to train other people, adding that it was important that the growing of mushrooms throughout the year was encouraged in the country unlike depending on traditional mushrooms.
Theresa Sakala, who participated in the training in 2021, said the training has benefited her because apart from providing her a source of income, it has helped her employ some young people who were helping her.
She encouraged local people in Zambia to consider participating in the training so that they become self-employed instead of waiting for the government to provide them with jobs.
"They need to utilize such opportunities because mushrooming growing is very easy. It just needs commitment. It also has crazy profit," she said.
Diana Kamau, the Mushroom Instructor at ATDC, said she was happy to see people who have trained to put their knowledge into practice.
"I get impressed when I see mushrooms and I always encourage them to continue," said Kamau, who has been training farmers for the past 10 years.
According to her, the demonstration center has been conducting training for an average of 20 farmers per week with farmers coming from different parts of the country.
She was, however, grateful that the demonstration center was working with some civil society organizations that send their people for training so that they could train others in different parts of the country.
The training, she said, has been helpful to the farmers as they are meant to cater to all categories of people.
The ATDC started operating in 2011 as part of the Chinese government initiative mooted in 2006 across Africa to consolidate the China-Africa trade and agriculture cooperation.
The ATDCs are meant to transfer Chinese technology and new methods of production through demonstrations and training, with the ultimate aim of increasing agricultural productivity.
The mushroom project is just one of the training programs being provided by the ATDC.
Compiled by LIEW JIA XIAN and BENJAMIN LEE
WHILE many people see mushrooms as just food, Hasrulizad Hasmuti saw them as an opportunity for a secondary source of income.
19 Jul 2022
The farm foreman at Felda Tenggaroh 5 in Johor said he had always been interested in growing mushrooms, so he started doing it at the site of a former petrol station in his village during his free time.
He invested RM400 and scored double returns of RM800.
“After I saw the amount I earned from the first batch, I bought more blocks so that I could grow more mushrooms, and now I can earn up to RM7,000 a month from the business,” the 42-year-old told Utusan Malaysia.
The father of four also said it was easy to grow and harvest mushrooms compared with other corps.
“When I come back from work, I would stop by the mushroom farm to tend to it for a while.
“It is really simple. I do not need to use any pesticides or buy big farming tools or equipment.
“The only tricky part is keeping the temperature consistently cold to ensure the best quality,” he added.
Hasrulizad said he was now using his knowledge and experience to help others in his area and hoped that more people would become mushroom entrepreneurs like him.
Handsome harvest: Muhamad Lokman Hakim with his sisters Puteri Nurin Sabirah (centre) and Puteri Nurin Darwisyah proudly showing the oyster mushrooms they cultivate in Kuala Krai, Kelantan. — Bernama
KUALA KRAI: Three siblings from Kampung Desa Kasih here have been generating almost RM10,000 a month from the sale of oyster mushrooms that they have been cultivating since last year.
Muhamad Lokman Hakim Md Sabri, who is a technician, said he had initially cultivated oyster mushrooms just to fill his spare time. Eventually, his two sisters, Puteri Nurin Darwisyah, 23, and Puteri Nurin Sabirah, 20, decided to help him cultivate the mushrooms as a side income.
“We started buying blocks of oyster mushrooms at RM1.60 per unit and as of now we have 3,000 blocks,” he told Bernama at his residence here yesterday.
Muhamad Lokman Hakim, 25, said residents and traders around Kuala Krai kept them busy as they had to meet the demand of nearly 30kg of mushrooms per day.
“We did not expect the sale of oyster mushrooms to be so popular, and in addition to having regular customers, we also sell them online using social media platforms to increase our income.
“To get maximum yield and quality, the temperature of the mushroom nursery or house needs to be humid. The environment must be clean too,” he said, adding that he harvested the mushrooms twice a day, in the morning and evening.
Muhamad Lokman Hakim expressed hope that he would receive assistance from related agencies as he was planning to sell blocks of oyster mushrooms to help anyone interested in mushroom cultivation.
“To produce oyster mushroom blocks, we need three materials, which are rubber wood dust, rice bran and agricultural lime, which are all mixed and blended using a machine. The material is steamed for six hours in a barrel and then cooled for 24 hours. After that, it is stored in a humid temperature room,” he said.
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2022/09/16/mushroom-farming-brings-siblings-rm10000-a-month?
MELAKA: After facing difficulties in selling vegetables and losing thousands of ringgit each day following the movement control order last year, Abdul Halim Abdullah decided to turn to Lohan guava (GU16) farming.
1 Nov 2021
Sweet return: Abdul Halim checking the quality of a guava at his farm in Kampung Tengah, Pulau Gadong in Melaka. — Bernama
Abdul Halim, 45, who has been cultivating vegetables such as chillies and eggplants for the past 13 years, said he made the decision after income from his telecommunications contractor job also suffered during the MCO period.
He now concentrates fully on Lohan guava or jambu batu cultivation.
Today, he has three farms over a 2.83ha area around Kampung Tengah, Pulau Gadong here, which are planted with about 1,000 trees.
“In the beginning, there were endless problems including issues over marketing which resulted in the fruits going to waste until I began to collaborate with the Melaka Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority (Fama).
“Alhamdulillah, the guava trees that I planted have reached maturity and can produce two tonnes of fruits to enable me to generate an income of RM10,000 a week,” Abdul Halim told Bernama at his farm in Pulau Gadong here.
Apart from supplying them to Fama in Negri Sembilan, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Melaka, he also supplies his farm produce to about 50 small traders and a wholesaler in the state.
According to Abdul Halim, the eight-tonne monthly supply was at times not sufficient for markets outside Melaka, so he was currently working on a GU16 pilot project with six friends for the cultivation of 2,000 trees on a 3.24ha site in Jalan Setulang Daeng, Bukit Rambai.
“The group project took off in early October and the trees are being planted in stages and will be fully completed by December.
“This would be followed by another project on a 6.47ha site in Bukit Katil early next year,” he said.
“The projects are implemented to meet the growing demand for Lohan guava and my aim is to produce at least 10 tonnes of guava a week by the end of next year,” said Abdul Halim, who comes from a family of farmers.
He now has four full-time employees, including a person with disabilities, to assist him in the three farms.
Abdul Halim said he initiated the group farming project to share his experience and help his friends generate good income equivalent to that of professional workers.
“Growing vegetables and growing Lohan guava is different especially in terms of capital, workload and burden of risk,” he said, adding that he has never regretted switching to guava cultivation.
He has received encouraging responses on the quality of the Lohan guava from buyers who have now become his regular customers as the fruits are sweet, crunchy and juicy.
In terms of pricing, Abdul Halim said the guavas were sold directly from the farms at RM5 per kilogramme for A-grade fruits, while B-grade ones were sold at RM4 and C-grade, at RM3.
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021/11/01/striking-big-with-guavas?
Euan Blair: How did the former PM’s son become richer than his dad?
Evening Standard
It’s an unfortunate fact of birth, forever being referred to as the son of former Prime Minister Tony Blair. But perhaps Euan Blair’s latest achievement rather takes the edge off: by ignoring his famous father’s education policy, the 37-year-old is now the richer of the two of them. By quite a way.
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| © Provided by Evening Standard euanblair11052021 |
According to reports, the Yale graduate and former Morgan Stanley banker is believed to have amassed a fortune of at least £160 million - more than three times Tony Blair’s reported £44 million.
So how has he done it? In short: by encouraging millennials not to go to university - in direct contradiction to his father’s promise to help half of young adults get a degree in 1999. His tech education startup, Multiverse, matches young people with apprenticeships at leading employers from Google to Depop after co-founder Euan admitted his own ancient history degree from Bristol “taught him nothing”.
The happily-married former US Congress intern has previously spoken about how his father’s vow had not delivered on social mobility, saying: “When you look at the 50 percent target, the belief was the more people go to university, the more people can access great opportunities, the more we would transition people fairly from full time education to full time employment.
“It has not worked out that way,” he continued, adding: “getting a degree does not guarantee you a job ... even from supposedly top universities.”
Demand for his apprenticeship-led programme has spiked during the pandemic. Since Covid put an end to in-person teaching across many universities, many young people have been asking “questions they may not have asked before” about formal higher education, boosting Multiverse’s funding close to billion-dollar “unicorn” status. Thanks to a new US investor-led funding round, it recently raised £95 million ($130m), rocketing the startup’s value to almost £650 million.
From his Downing Street childhood to his venture capitalist wife, this is how the eldest of the Blair dynasty made his millions.
Chances are you’ll have first glimpsed Euan Blair as a teenager standing on the steps of Downing Street with his parents and siblings. Pictures from his father’s time in office show him in a range of classic noughties outfits, from baggy shirts to goatee beards and shaggy teenage hair.
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| © Provided by Evening Standard (AFP/Getty Images) |
He went on to do an internship in US Congress before joining investment bank Morgan Stanley’s graduate programme, where he met his future co-founder: Cambridge and Stanford graduate Sophie Adelman, who was working in recruitment.
Euan wasn’t the only one of his siblings to graduate into a successful career. His brother Nicky, 36, is a football agent with a £2.75 million home in north London, sister Kathryn, 32, is a top barrister with two homes in London and one in Buckinghamshire, and brother Leo, 20, is currently studying at Oxford. Clearly, Euan wasn’t able to dissuade his youngest sibling to swerve further education just yet.
Euan’s Downing Street upbringing wasn’t just the catalyst for his professional success, but it clearly played a role in his love life, too. In 2006 he was introduced to his future wife, venture capitalist Suzanne Ashman, by former defence secretary Geoff Hoon, who had given Ashman a work experience placement.
Ashman, the daughter of motor racing entrepreneur Jonathan Ashman, and Blair were together for seven years before marrying in 2013. She currently works as a partner at venture capital firm Local Globe and in 2017 she was named as a prominent European financier in Forbes’ 30 under 30 list.
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| © Provided by Evening Standard Here comes the bride: Euan Blair and Suzanne Ashman leaving the church |
Euan is proof that making millions can often be down to having one bright idea and running with it. In 2016 he and Adelman set up White Hat, now rebranded to Multiverse, with the idea of connecting bright school leavers with appetising apprenticeships at top employers.
Since then it has matched more than 5,000 apprentices with top employers and doubled its headcount to 400 staff, including in a newly-launched New York office. Facebook, Google, Depop, Bloomberg and Morgan Stanley are among the 300 or so leading companies Multiverse has partnered with so far and Blair says several young people have even turned down places at Oxford to join the scheme.
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| © Provided by Evening Standard Euan Blair and Sophie Adelman from Whitehat (NIGEL HOWARD ©) |
Business has continued to grow in recent years - and fast. This week it was reported that Multiverse was nearing billion-dollar “unicorn” status after raising $130 million (£95 million) in a US investor-led funding round, with backers including Google Ventures and Microsoft Chairman John Thompson.
The start-up is now valued at $875 million (£639 million), up from a $200 million valuation since January, and Euan is now estimated to have a paper fortune in the tens of millions thanks to reportedly owning between 25 to 50 per cent of the company’s shares.
For Euan, the pandemic has only bolstered his belief that too many people are choosing university. He says his own degree “taught him nothing” and thinks the rise in remote teaching caused by Covid has only lessened higher education’s appeal. “Getting a degree does not guarantee you a job... even from supposedly top universities,” he said recently at the Evening Standard’s London Rising series.
Clearly, young people and their parents are listening: a YouGov poll published in May found that 42 per cent of people thought that an apprenticeship was a better preparation than university for the future — seven times the number who believed a degree was the best start to working life.
“Over the last few years, the sort of people applying to do apprenticeships has changed quite a lot. You’ve had private schools really embrace it and see an opportunity,” Blair recently said of those changing attitudes, explaining how apprenticeships have started to pass “the middle-class dinner party test”.
His startup has also been praised for prioritising social mobility. 53 per cent of Multiverse’s apprentices are people of colour and 36 per cent come from under-resourced communities.
The company has launched a recruitment drive with rappers including Tinie Tempah and Ms Banks to raise awareness about apprenticeships among more disadvantaged students, with concert tickets offered in return for attending a career workshops.
So what’s next? Since launching a New York office this year, Euan says his next plan is to expand throughout America. If his success in the UK is anything to go by, being three times richer than his father could be just the beginning.
