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Kundasang is known for its fresh
vegetable market with fresh and very reasonably priced vegetables.
Kundasang view of the mountain is breathtaking.
Many Vegetable farms and mushroom
farms where shitake mushrooms are grown.
An enterprise situated at the
scenic Mesilau in Kundasang, at the foot of Mt Kinabalu, has been
harnessing the mountain's cool climate to yield high quality
mushrooms, especially the shiitake species.
Borneo Mushroom, established in 1992, is owned by Rural Development
Corporation (KPD), a government agency under the Sabah Ministry of
Agriculture and Food Industries.
Borneo Mushroom is credited for its
significant contribution to the mushroom farming industry in Sabah.
The company's economic activities
are not profit-oriented but geared more towards complementing the
government's efforts in poverty eradication, especially among the
rural poor in Sabah.
Jamilah Lee is Borneo Mushroom's manager.
Rural Development Corporation (KPD)
venture into mushroom plantation started from humble beginnings in
1989 where the company nurtured a few contract farmers in mushroom
farming.
Initially KPD sought technical expertise on shiitake farming from
experts in Taiwan, Japan and China, and gradually improved the
planting techniques locally.
The center's activities has since expanded into producing four
species of mushroom seeds and seedlings
1) shiitake,
2) ganoderma or ling tze,
3) oyster and
4) the jelly ear mushroom.
Borneo Mushroom supplies mushroom seedlings in pp bags and provides
technical services on mushroom farming especially to KPD's contract
farmers and farms.
Currently the centre is producing about 75,000 pp bags per month to
meet the demand from mushroom farmers, especially KPD contract
farmers.
In 2009 the centre produced almost
48,000 pp bags of seedlings per month.
The centre also conducts theoretical and technical courses on
mushroom cultivation to participants from private agencies,
institutes of higher learning as well as interested individuals.
Except for KPD contract farmers, fees are imposed on other
participants. And, shiitake seedlings are only given to KPD contract
farmers who are under the poverty eradication programme.
Those eligible to join as contract farmers must be from a family
with a household income of not more than RM590 a month, which is
below the poverty line.
Presently KPD has about 70 contract farmers who are only planting
shiitake mushroom. They are mostly in Kundasang, Ranau and Moyog in
the Penampang district in the west coast of Sabah.
Under contract farming agreement Borneo Mushroom will buy back
shiitake mushrooms from contract farmers before being sold to the
wholesalers.
The contract farmers' earning depends on their farming scale often
between 300 and 3,000 pp bags, which translate into an earning of
about RM300 to RM3,000 per harvest.
At the moment two of KPD's most successful shiitake contract farmers
in Moyog, are earning between RM15,000 and RM18,000 a year.
The centre has been awarded with the Halal and Good Agricultural
Practice Scheme certificates in 2007 and also the Malaysia Best
certificate recently
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