
The “Maison du Champignon” is one of the pilot enterprises set up under the ENABLE Youth Cameroon program. The enterprise is dedicated to producing fresh mushrooms, processing fresh mushrooms into dried mushrooms, and marketing and selling the product.
Edible mushrooms constitute a niche crop with numerous virtues and are therefore considered a nutraceutical (medicinal food). Until recently, the mushrooms consumed in Cameroon were exclusively picked in the wild. Mushroom farming, introduced over a decade ago, was the privilege of Belgian missionaries and Chinese cooperation.

Following the enthusiasm for this foodstuff, the government set up the Mushroom Vulgarization Project to ensure the follow-up of mushroom growers, local mushroom home-growing trials, and their dissemination. However, despite all these efforts, edible mushrooms are imported in large quantities, demonstrating that local production does not meet demand. Hence the idea of creating “La Maison du Champignon” at YABIC of Zamengoue to fill this gap by producing fresh edible oyster mushrooms, processing (drying), and selling them.

Now, hundreds of oyster mushrooms flourish in a darkened room at YABIC Zamengoue, also called a mushroom farm. The mushroom production cycle lasts three months (incubation, fruiting, and picking), with a production capacity of 1,900 to 2,000 bundles per cycle. A kilogram of fresh mushrooms is sold at 2,500 CFA francs and dried at 15,000 CFA francs. Although sales are still modest, the enterprise already has a network of regular clients who buy directly from YABIC.
Contributed by Marielle Diyani
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