Overcoming poverty with shiitake mushrooms
PENAMPANG: Inside the many huts covered with farming nets along a hilly stretch of road to Tambunan here, are shiitake mushrooms cultivated by villagers for the last three decades.
Most households here are contract farmers for the Rural Development Corporation, and growing shiitake has been the main source of income for the Kampung Togudon community since the 1990s.
Midin Dompoton, 54, who began cultivating shiitake mushrooms in 1991, earns a decent income that has allowed him to raise six children and live comfortably in the hills of the village, which is part of the Crocker Range, 35km from here.
Sabah produces more than 40 tonnes of shiitake mushrooms annually from three locations, including Kimanis and Kundasang.
“I grow rice and vegetables nearby, but my main income comes from shiitake mushrooms,” he said of the product that was introduced by the government to help the rural poor through agriculture, such as the state Barisan Nasional government’s Mini Estet Sejahtera (Mesej) programme.
Eradicating poverty is one of the thrusts in the Sabah BN manifesto for the 14th General Election.
“To me, the most important thing is to put in effort, because when it comes to the government’s assistance, there are numerous things. We just have to work hard. Growing mushrooms may seem easy, but it is not.
“It is about having discipline and dedication.”
His day starts at 5am, watering 10,000 tubular bags in his 50mlong and 13m-wide hut in Jalan Penampang-Tambunan.
Midin, who earns about RM3,000 monthly, said when he was younger, he used to earn RM6 a day working on farms before returning to Togudon.
There, he built his mushroom hut.
“I come from a poor family. Many of us come from poor families in this village, but we got help and and we took advantage of it.
“This requires hard work, but complaining about it will not bring us anywhere.”
The poverty rate in the state stood at 2.9 per cent in 2016, and BN aims to eradicate it by 2035. In 2009, it was at 19.7 per cent and it dropped to 8.1 per cent in 2012.
Mesej is a programme to eradicate hardcore poverty through systematic agricultural development projects, which includes providing houses and amenities to communities.
There are 52 Mesej projects across the state, involving 2,500 households.