Can Mushroom InfluenceA Real Estate Market?

There are many hill stations in India and apart from its scenic beauty, chill climate, each of them have their unique attractions like toy train (in Ooty, Shimla, Darjeeling), adventure sports (in Mussoorie, Kullu – Manali, etc), spiritual importance (in Rishikesh, Kedarnath, Badrinath, etc), agriculture produce like tea (in Nilgiris, Munnar, Darjeeling), Coffee (in Coorg), Apple (in Shimla), Strawberry (in Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar) and other tourist spots.

Similarly Solan, a hill station with all the necessary beautiful vignettes of heady pleasure, blessed with a pleasant weather at an average altitude of 1550 metres has a unique attraction and it has a greater influence in its economy and real estate.

Can you guess it?

It is a fungus.

Can fungi have influence on its economy and real estate?

Yes. We will look into the facts which are not known to many who might have visited Solan.

Driving the economy uphill aside the tourism industry in Solan is the production of mushroom. The large scale of the business has enabled it earn the crown as the mushroom city of India. The growth of the food product categorised as a vegetable though it originally belongs to the family of fungi has done wonders for every real estate in Solan as illustrated below.

Unknown Facts about Mushroom

Mushroom has been consumed by humans since ancient time. The Japanese and Chinese used it for medicinal purpose and the people of Rome, Greece, Egypt offered it to Gods. During this period the cultivation technique of Mushroom was not known to them and they have been gathering it from the wild / untamed area during the winter or rainy season and believed they are rare to get.

It is believed that the cultivation of certain spices of Mushroom started eight centuries ago and the historically recorded cultivation started in France around 1650 and later it spread to England. Mushroom cultivation in the United States started in 19^th Century. Today Mushroom is globally cultivated and considered as a vegetable rather than fungi. The global annual produce stands at millions of tonnes. The most popular edible mushroom varietiesare the Button Mushrooms, Shitake Mushrooms, Oyster Mushrooms, Portobello Mushrooms, Straw Mushrooms, etc.

Similar to Solan known as the ‘Mushroom City of India, Kennett SquarePAis called as the ‘Mushroom Capital of the World’ - it caters around 60% need of the USA,  Qingyuan County, Zhejiang, China  is the ‘Mushroom City of China’ and San José del Pacifico is theMushroom Capital of Mexico, etc

Influence of Mushroom in Solan Economy & Real Estate

The Mushrooms basically need cool weather and Solan is an apt place for cultivating it. The vast tracts of mushroom cultivation in Solan had prompted the central government to establish the Directorate of Mushroom Research (DMR) at Chambaghat. Beginning from 1997, the administration has been celebrating ‘National Mushroom Mela’ in the town. What started as an experimental basis has received widespread cooperation and accolades from the farming community.The mushroom festival is also seen as a vital venue to demonstrate the new developments in the sphere. Latest innovations are explained to the farmers who transform it into additional revenue and have reached a level where they can buy a property for sale in Solan.The excess agro residue that goes waste finds excellent utility in mushroom cultivation and is a best fit in the secondary agriculture in today’s circumstances of sparse fertile land.

The awareness about Mushroom’s nutrition potential, the consumption of it among Indians and thus the demand for it started growing drastically in the recent past. On the other hand, the farmers find it more profitable than traditional vegetable cultivation and thus the number of farmers in Solan diversifying into Mushroom cultivation transformed it into the ‘Mushroom Capital of India’ and there is a consistent demand to buy land for sale in Solan.

Due to high labour cost in the western countries, the cost of producing mushrooms has increased and they started importing Mushrooms from India and China. This made a phenomenal growth in Mushroom cultivation not only in Solan but throughout India down the line - About 80 per cent of India's produce is exported. The locals of Solan have largely benefited from the mushroom cultivation and their livelihood has prospered well enough to buy house / flat for sale in Solan. The money made from mushroom is easily transformed into the realty space of Solan.For those intending to lead a life of pleasure with profession the first thing to strike their mind is to buy house in Solan.

Unlike other vegetable cultivation, there is not much wastage in Mushroom industry since the demand for mushroom is always higher than the supply globally. In addition to cooking as a food, the Indians use Mushrooms for pickle as well as Salad and hence this industry in Solan was not affected during the scenario like recent pandemic which led to the rest of localites to buy property in Solan especially agriculture land to step into this ever green agriculture industry.The erosion in agriculture land availability has kindled many to swerve towards mushroom farming.

The enormous speed of concretization has been putting pressure on the cultivable land in Solan.This leads to the Solan property owners to post property Ad for free in the online property portals / property selling sites to sell property online and to liquidate their asset into great fortune making use of the high demand for land in Solan at present. Thus economy and real estate in Solan is greatly influenced in addition to tourism. From being a place centred on tourism, the emergence of mushroom cultivation has enabled a paradigm shift to the business of horticulture for the inhabitants of Solan. The staggering strides made in genomics, molecular breeding and farm mechanization with technology dissemination in swift mode have added sheen to the life of those involved in farming.

The consistent government support at all strategic levels of mushroom production reinforced with applied research on its different types of utility like medicinal value apart from general consumption has enhanced the overall productivity and brought a windfall to the stakeholders. There are many medicinal mushrooms such as Amanita, Calocybe, Cantharellus, Coprinus, Cortinarius, Ganoderma, Grifola, Huitlacoche, Hydnum, Lentinus, Morchella, Pleurotus, Rigidoporus, Tremella, etc.The farmers in Solan have started growing Shiitake mushrooms variety after the scientists of the Directorate of Mushroom Research in Chambaghat in Solan, proved them of having anti-cancer and anti-HIV agents. China and Japan are the largest producers of Shiitake Mushrooms. The Shiitake mushrooms are valued at 650 rupees to 750 rupees per kilogram in India, which is unbelievable revenue to the farmers. Mushroom cultivation was a new phenomenon in India when it was started few decades ago and the medicinal mushrooms are going to play a vital role in the near future on the Solan economy as well as on its real estate without doubt.The specialized real estate portal / property sale site like Hills & Wills (exclusively for hill station real estate) made it easy for the Solan property owners to post property Ad andthe buyers to buy property in Solan.

Following Solan, many other hill stations in India like the Nilgiris started growing Mushrooms recently due to its favourable climate!