Socio-economic and cultural factors that affect mushroom production in Southwest Nigeria

Our study examined the factors affecting mushroom production in three states randomly selected in Southwest of Nigeria, Ondo, Osun and Oyo. Two institutions and 23 individuals (15 men and 8 women) produce mushrooms in the selected states. They were all included in our study. Our study revealed that 44% of the respondents were between 26 and 35 years of age, while 20% were between 46 and 50 years of age, 64% of the growers were married, 28% were single. The household size composition showed that 56% were between 1 and 5 while 36% were between 6 and 10. Only 36% and 32% of the respondents were found to consider taboos and other cultural beliefs, respectively, as important factors in their decision to grow mushrooms. Significant relationship was found to exist between household size, information on mushroom production, cultural beliefs, storage and output size of mushrooms. With a gross margin of 4,129,000 Nigerian Naira ($32,769.84) mushroom production was considered to be profitable.