Growing Mushrooms an Alternative When Crops Fail

Magdalena Gwasuma ducks carefully into a small, dark cage at the back of her house, where rows of fresh oyster mushrooms sit on wooden shelves.

"I didn't know anything about growing mushrooms at home - we used to get them from the forest," the 60-year-old told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "I didn't know growing mushrooms could be a way of making money."

Gwasuma, who lives near Babati town on the edge of the Nou forest in Tanzania's northern Manyara region, now realises she can make a living without cutting down the neighbouring trees.

Thousands of people living in the area have long depended on the forests around them to source wood for fuel or to make charcoal for a living, aid workers say.

http://news.trust.org/item/20160718092500-axbva/

Phil Norton

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