How do I start a mushroom farming business in India?
Start with oyster mushrooms in a small shed or spare space, and get trained before you spend: banks and subsidy schemes ask for a training certificate, offered by state agriculture universities, Krishi Vigyan Kendras and ICAR's mushroom research directorate. Button mushrooms earn more but need composting and climate control, so they suit a second phase. Write a project report with the cost of spawn, substrate, shelving and the shed, the yield per cycle and your buyers, because that is what the bank and the National Horticulture Mission's subsidy are judged on. Fresh mushrooms count as food, so register with FSSAI: Rs 100 a year up to Rs 1.5 crore turnover. Sell before you grow: line up hotels, restaurants, vegetable vendors or a local store, since fresh mushrooms keep only a few days. What kills most first farms is contamination and an unsold harvest, so keep the growing space clean, start with a few bags, and dry or pickle what does not sell fresh.
The board that runs horticulture subsidy schemes, including commercial horticulture and cold storage, and the Nursery Rating System that star-rates plant nurseries.
The FSSAI's current table of which food business needs which licence and what it costs a year, revised from 1 April 2026: most businesses up to Rs 1.5 crore turnover need only a Registration at Rs 100, a State Licence costs Rs 5,000 up to Rs 50 crore, and a Central Licence Rs 7,500 above that. Importers, merchant exporters and businesses registered as e-commerce need a Central Licence whatever their size, and hawkers pay nothing.
The four MUDRA loan bands for a micro business, given through banks and NBFCs: Shishu up to Rs 50,000, Kishore up to Rs 5 lakh, Tarun up to Rs 10 lakh and Tarun Plus up to Rs 20 lakh.
The business lesson of NIOS's vocational course in mushroom production: where loans and subsidy come from (the National Horticulture Mission and banks), the records a unit must keep, how to write a project report and how to cost button mushroom production.
The government's only portal for registering a micro, small or medium enterprise. It states registration is free and lists the revised limits: a micro enterprise has investment up to ₹2.5 crore and turnover up to ₹10 crore, a small one up to ₹25 crore and ₹100 crore.
