Adeline Umukunzi, 31, is reaping big from a mushroom growing business she started in 2018 with merely Rwf50, 000 as capital.

After graduating from high school, in 2018, Umukunzi who lives in Musanze District was worried that her low level of education would not get a decent job. But she was not ready to give up. She therefore visited a local farmers’ organization intent on learning from what they were doing.

Umukunzi talked to farmers who were growing different crops and found out that farming was actually costly. But all hope was not lost as she learnt that mushroom growing was unique as it required little capital to start.

"This is where the idea of mushroom farming came from. I met a mother who was cultivating mushrooms and told me all about what is needed to cultivate mushrooms. I realized that it requires little capital to start such a business, on a small size of land. I started my business with Rwf50, 000 as capital,” Umukunzi told Doing Business.

At the time, farmers were buying mushroom spores from Kigali.

"One mushroom spore goes for Rwf500 and mushrooms are harvested every three months. With capital ranging from Rwf5, 000 and above I realised that I can start the business because you can even grow mushrooms in a basin if you have no big space,” she said.

Mushrooms grow from spores (not seeds) which are so tiny that you can’t see them with the naked eye. Rather than soil, mushroom spores rely on substances like sawdust, grain, straw, or wood chips for nourishment. Mushroom spores travel from the mushroom along wind currents, and when they land in a moist place, they germinate.

To get her Rwf50, 000 capital, Umukunzi first joined a group of 11 youth in her community to start a savings group.

"Each of us used to save Rwf200 every week.”

After getting Rwf50, 000, the group rented a small house at Rwf5, 000 in which they cultivated mushroom spores worth Rwf40, 000.

By then, each member managed her own mushroom business in the same place they rented but they would harvest together and sell their produce in Kigali. In the beginning, they counted losses as they had not gained all required skills in growing mushrooms.

Some therefore got discouraged and sought other forms of employment.

However, Umukunzi and two other colleagues persisted.

"After six months Kigali Farms Company equipped us with more skills. We invested in 100 mushroom spores worth Rwf90, 000. We harvested Rwf180, 000 of produce, meaning we had in Rwf90, 000 profits,” Umukunzi said.

Each later opened her individual company but remained operating in the same mushroom growing site.

Umukunzi started a company called J&A Innovators Ltd.

"We would supply our harvest to clients together. We also signed different contracts with hotels and restaurants. I currently supply my harvest on the local market and the DRC market. As clients kept increasing, I also increased capital,” she said.

Lately, she leases Rwf500, 000 of space, every three years, for mushroom growing and she is growing mushrooms in 26 small shelters.

"Every shelter has 300 mushroom spores. The 300 mushroom spores produce 120 kilos. We start harvesting between seven and 15 days. We will continue harvesting for three months,” she said.

One kilo of mushroom harvest goes for between Rwf2, 000 and Rwf2, 500.

Umukunzi generates between Rwf6.2 million and Rwf7.8 million, every three months, from her 26 shelters.

As she kept generating more and more income, the agripreneur said, she set aside some money to enroll at a university in neighboring DR Congo.

"I studied general nursing at university for three years and I graduated.”

Her business has equipped hundreds of teen and single mothers with mushroom growing skills.

"I have six permanent workers; four women and two men. I also employ 70 casual workers every three months,” she said.

Plans and challenges

"I want to start producing my own mushroom spores which are my raw materials, instead of sourcing them from others because I want to cut such costs and increase profits,” she said.

Umukunzi also seeks to add value to the mushrooms.

"I sometimes produce flour from mushrooms by drying and grinding them but this is done in a traditional way. I want to buy modern drying and processing machines so as to add value to mushrooms.”

She also makes Sambusa from mushrooms.

"I want to modernise the value addition and have different units of production,” she said.

Umukunzi told Doing Business that the main challenge startups are facing in the agriculture sector is access to loans.

"I have not got any loan from banks. I tried but failed. Banks need collaterals such as land. We need them to take our business as collateral because the land I am using is not mine,” she noted, adding that banks take agriculture as a risky sector.

The sector gets only 5.2 per cent of total loans disbursed by financial institutions in the country.

Rwanda targets to double agriculture sector lending to 10.4 per cent, by 2024. The government is expected to start an agriculture facility with an initial investment of $350 million (about Rwf350 billion), Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente recently said, indicating that it will help provide farmers with loans at less than 10 per cent interest rate.

Umukunzi wishes the government could also consider mushroom farmers once the project is implemented so they can access to lending considering that hers is a viable business that can be carried out in all parts of the country.

According to the Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB), in the past five years, the mushroom industry experienced low production.

Currently, there are 32 companies and 20 cooperatives that produce around 629.200 tubes.

More than 123 individual farmers are cultivating mushroom tubes and they harvest around 523,600 tons per year.

According to RAB, the government wants to boost mushroom growers’ capacity through training, research in addition to dissemination of new and better mushroom varieties so as to increase production.

Currently, there are three varieties of mushrooms grown in Rwanda. Three other varieties are under research.

About 35,000 mushroom farmers were trained on Juncao technology, a Chinese-invented technology to grow mushrooms using low-cost materials. Juncao technology uses chopped grass as a substrate for growing edible and medicinal mushrooms.