Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of macrofungi. They include both edible/medicinal and poisonous species. However, originally, the word “mushroom” was used for the edible members of macrofungi and “toadstools” for poisonous ones of the “gill” macrofungi. Scientifically the term “toadstool” has no meaning at all and it has been proposed that the term is dropped altogether in order to avoid confusion and the terms edible, medicinal and poisonous mushrooms are used.
Edible mushrooms once called the “food of the gods” and still treated as a garnish or delicacy can be taken regularly as part of the human diet or be treated as healthy food or as functional food. The extractable products from medicinal mushrooms, designed to supplement the human diet not as regular food, but as the enhancement of health and fitness, can be classified into the category of dietary supplements/mushroom nutriceuticals (Chang and Buswell, 1996). Dietary supplements are ingredients extracted from foods, herbs, mushrooms and other plants that are taken without further modification for their presumed health-enhancing benefits.
Mushroom cultivation has great scope in China, India and in some of other developing countries because of the cheap and easily available raw materials needed for this activity, coupled with faster means of communication and marketing (as a fresh commodity), and better purchasing power of the people. Using China as for example, in 1978, the production of edible mushrooms was only 60,000 tonnes. In 2006, China’s mushroom production was over 14 million tonnes. Now there are more than 30 million people directly or indirectly engaged in mushroom production and businesses, and now China has become a leading mushroom producer and consumer in the world.
It is hoped that the avocation of mushroom farming will become a very important cottage industry activity in the integrated rural development programme, which will lead to the economic betterment of not only small farmers but also of landless labourers and other weak sections of communities.