←Bridge the Gap — Healthy Cities
Shubham Panwar
Women-Led Sustainable Mushroom Cultivation for Nutrition and Livelihood in Rural Uttarkashi
Jhala, Harsil Valley and Saini, Dunda block, Uttarkashi · Uttarakhand · December 2025 to March 2026
Forty women in two Uttarkashi villages, four hundred kilos of straw that would otherwise have been burnt, and seventy kilos of mushrooms out of the first cycle at Saini. Temperature and humidity tracked over WhatsApp.
40
Women trained
December 2025 to March 2026
400 kg
Crop residue reused instead of burnt
December 2025 to March 2026
70 kg
Mushrooms from the first cycle at Saini
first production cycle, early 2026
~₹14,000
Income generated by the two units
first production cycle, early 2026
The work
Two units the women run
Straw, spawn, a sealing machine, a weighing machine and printed packaging in each village. Enough to sell from, not only to grow in.
Turn the residue into food
The straw becomes a mushroom bed or it becomes smoke. Four hundred kilos went the first way.
Sell to the road that is already there
Sixteen to seventeen lakh people a year travel the Gangotri route past these villages. The packaging exists for them.
- Surveyed both villages and mobilised forty women across eight self-help groups
- Ran hands-on training in Jhala and in Saini on cultivation, hygiene, packaging and basic marketing
- Set up two women-managed units, each with 200 kg of straw, twenty spawn packets and sealing and weighing machines
- Moved spawn up the valley by refrigerated trailer
- Tracked temperature and humidity through a WhatsApp group across the first production cycle
- Kartavya Foundation
What people said
Sangeeta Devi
“Ab hum ghar baithe hi income kar sakte hain aur parivar ko nutritious khana bhi de sakte hain.”
Self-help group member · Saini village
Abhishek Rauntela
“Jhala mein itni thand mein bhi mushroom ug aaya — yeh bahut badi baat hai.”
Gram Pradhan · Jhala
The rest of the cohort
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