Vol. 8, Special Issue 11, Part E (2024)

Mushroom growing is a profitable venture and widely accepted by the researchers as a good venture for higher income, employment generation and rural development. The present study was conducted to find out the impact of training programmes conducted on mushroom cultivation for women entrepreneurship development at KVK Shopian, J&K. A total of 200 women trainees were randomly selected who had undergone through trainings and demonstrations on mushroom cultivation at KVK from 2020 to 2024. It was observed that pre-training knowledge score was not much satisfactory for all the aspects of training programme. However, it was observed from the respondents that the knowledge gained after trainings and demonstrations was much satisfactory in all aspects. It was observed that exposure to trainings had increased the knowledge of farm women regarding mushroom cultivation techniques by 73.0%. The reason behind the satisfactory change in precipitation level might be due to well educational background, Keen interest of the participants, ease of cultivation technique and methods followed for transfer of technology to women farmers. Some trainees adopted mushroom cultivation as their self-employment source and setup their own mushroom units. A group of trainees started enterprise on preparation of value added products like pickles, mushroom powder etc. from mushroom. The study revealed that mushroom cultivation trainings conducted by KVK Shopian has created a favourable attitude among trainees towards mushroom cultivation. The study also revealed that awareness and training programmes on mushroom cultivation helped in enhancing the economic level of women farmers leading to mushroom based entrepreneurship development.