Starter Kit. Idea 277 of 500. Cluster 14
Mushroom farms supplying the hotels, since most are still imported
The mechanism, from the book
The smallholder sells raw to a collector at the gate and the collector sells to a packer who puts his own name on it. Denmark's farmers got rich the day they owned the creamery.
The first step
Grow a few bags of oyster mushroom in a shed or spare room. Meanwhile ask the purchasing managers of three hotels which mushrooms they buy, how much a week, and what they pay. When the first harvest is ready, deliver a free box to each kitchen with a weekly price attached. A standing weekly order from any one of them is your proof.
- Who pays first
- A hotel kitchen that buys imported mushrooms every week and would rather have fresh local ones delivered the day they are picked.
- What leaves today
- Hotels import mushrooms that can be grown indoors on the island, so the money for a daily ingredient leaves every week.
Ask first
- Department of Agriculture. Ask whether they offer spawn or training for mushroom growers.
- the area Medical Officer of Health. Ask what a growing room needs before supplying hotel kitchens.
Check before you spend
Whether your growing room is clean enough for food supply, and whether a hotel will agree a weekly order in writing.
Find out these three numbers
- Which mushrooms do hotels buy, and how much a week?
- What do hotels pay for imported mushrooms now?
- How much does one bag yield before it is spent?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.