Growing Mushrooms in Reusable Buckets

Between October 2023 and August 2024, Minak Projects ran a mushroom cultivation project in Nakivale, Uganda to create better food security, nutrition, and economic resilience. By supporting displaced women with specialised mycology skills, the project offered a pathway to financial independence and a strategy to combat local malnutrition.

The project grew food insecurity in a context where food aid was being severely cut, by introducing a high-protein fungal food source. The project's circular design allowed the use of local agricultural waste such as dried legume husks as growing substrate. Once the substrate was used, it was then composted in local Permaculture food gardens, allowing the nutrients to return back to the land. Beyond the food harvest, residents' active participation strengthened community bonds and learning.

Mushroom cultivation is a valuable addition in refugee contexts because the mushrooms can be grown in clean, upcycled and reusable containers such as buckets, and grown in small spaces. The crops also have good value-addition potential, with the ability to solar-dry the mushrooms and ground down to a storable and nutrient-rich powder.

Re-Alliance worked with Minak Projects and other partners to develop a 'how-to' booklet, which was then translated into multiple languages, so other displaced communities can learn and adapt mushroom growing to their own contexts. Click the image below to download the publication.