A new initiative to help farming families in Bolivia
As many of the readers of this blog already know, the Community of Saint Paul runs development projects in eight rural communities from the Totora Pampa region, near Cochabamba, in Bolivia. We have implemented a reforestation project, since the zone is very arid and the subsoil is deteriorating slowly with the subsequent loss of nutrients that affects the crops. Each year we have planted fifty thousand trees on the communal lands of the area. A while ago we began a new initiative that, so far, is progressing very well. In one of the controls of the reforested zones we realized that under the pines grew mushrooms: no one collected or paid any attention to them.
Then we decided to take advantage of a resource that was born naturally and without generating any cost. The process through which the local population learned to value the mushrooms was long: we had to demonstrate that this product is not harmful to our health, and that it can be consumed in different ways. Then they had to learn how to preserve the mushrooms in times when the lack of rain no longer allows for their production.
Once the mushrooms began to be an element —although still sporadic— in the local diet, we continued with the following phases of the project. First, people learned how to produce and harvest them properly; next, they learned the mushrooms’ dehydration process.
We delimited the grazing areas, to preserve the areas of mushroom production and thus prevent the llamas, sheep and cows from damaging the crop. We have also regulated the collection to avoid overexploitation and favor the production of the following seasons.
Along the process, theoretical and practical workshops have served us all to learn the physiology of mushrooms and their relationship with the environment. To dehydrate them, we constructed domestic dryers with plastic and local wood near the family houses, so we can protect them from rain and keep the necessary humidity, about 5%, to guarantee the quality of the final product.
As a result of all this work, the people of the Totora Pampa now see the production of mushrooms as an economic and nutritional alternative.
The last aspect of the project has been a surprise even for us: we discussed this initiative with the owners of a few restaurants in Cochabamba… and they were interested! We started a simple marketing of the product, and now four restaurants from the city have become our loyal customers! Currently, the chefs of these restaurants prepare their pizzas of fungi porcini, risottos and different types of pasta, all with our mushrooms! They are the pride of the inhabitants of the humble community of Totora Pampa, who farm the —now increasingly renowned— mushrooms.
