Week 2 - Q&A with Mr Azhar

31 October 2016 - 3:30pm

We wanted to find out more about the Mushroom Farms in Indonesia as we had never been there.

We also wanted to understand the needs of the people there and how they grow their mushrooms. To find out more information, we contacted Mr Azhar who went to the mushroom farm in Yogyakarta during the period of March & April 2016 for Learning Express (LEX).

Background:

We found out that the people operating the mushroom farms were mostly housewives and the mushrooms were a side income for them. Rice and wheat were their main source of income.

The housewives also known as Ibus grow the mushrooms behind their house in a shelter.

This is because mushrooms thrive in humid and dark areas.

How the shelter looks like

The mushrooms are also placed on wooden shelves slightly above the ground.

This was because there were insects that would eat the mushrooms when the shelves were directly on the ground and termites would also grow on the shelves.

Humidity:

So how do the housewives ensure that the humidity is good for mushrooms growth?

Apparently, they splash water onto the floor and let it evaporate in the shelter in hope of increasing the humidity level.

However, the housewives have no means of measuring the humidity in the room.

The group of students who went for (LEX) with Mr Azhar tried to solve the housewives problem by using a hygrometer.

Hygrometer

The housewives had to measure the wet bulb and dry bulb temperature and do some simple calculation like "dry bulb minus wet bulb temperature" then compare the figure with a table to obtain the humidity level.

Suggestions:

Mr Azhar suggested creating a simple temperature and humidity sensor for the housewives and display the readings somewhere like the kitchen and also indicate the status of the humidity level.

This is so that the housewives do not have to constantly go in the shelter to check.

They could be cooking in the kitchen and yet know the current situation in the mushroom farm.

Things to note:

Mr Azhar said that it is easy for us to obtain resources here in singapore however, it is not the same in the mushroom farm village. So we need to consider the ease of obtaining resources.

Another thing was that they might not have strong wifi and very limited 3G so we would most probably need to work with hard wires, wireless or bluetooth functions.

Lastly,

Special thanks to Mr Azhar for taking his time to let us ask him questions and Yu Yang, a student who went for the LEX trip, for providing us the pictures as well!!