Assessment of Oyster Mushroom Production and Profitability in Harare Urban andPeriurban Areas (RUWA), Zimbabwe

Abstract

The study is an evaluation of the profitability of oyster mushroom production by small scale producers in urban and peri-urban settings with particular attention on trends in production and revenue during the period of 2014–2017. The Net Present Value (NPV), Discount rate and Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) were used to evaluate profitability. The average values of NPV, BCR and IRR for the year 2014–2017 were 13036.46, 15.75 and 141.42%, respectively. These values show that mushroom production has been very profitable during the period. Furthermore, production decreased between 2014 and 2015 before rising exponentially from 2015 to 2017. Major challenges in the production of mushrooms from the study included lack of financial support, marketing problems, lack of space for production, training, quality of spawns and substrates, temperature control, mushroom diseases, people’s negative attitude and water shortages. It is therefore recommended that the Government and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) should play a leading role in funding production. This could be done through contract farming, formation of mushroom growers association and provision of post services to producers.