"Contest: How I Store and Preserve my Farm Produce

It could be very challenging as a farmer if you produce crops and have no particular method of preservation. Because sometimes, you may not be able to sell or consume your farm produce at once, that's why it's important for farmers to have a preservation method to store their crops after harvesting.

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That reminds me when I started mushroom farming newly because it was difficult for me to preserve the mushrooms whenever I harvested them, especially because it was the rainy season. The only way to preserve mushrooms after refrigerating for a day is to sun dry them, but I couldn't dry them because it was always raining. I used to trash them off whenever a customer didn't book for it or when it wasn't well dried.

One day, I visited a colleague of mine who is in the same business and asked how he preserves his own. He showed me how he connected electricity bulbs on his farm to use them for drying the mushrooms. According to him, he has tried every meaningful way to preserve it, especially in terms of drying, just like I have too, he couldn't find a suitable method until he thought of the construction.

It was a nice idea. So, I came back to look for ways to preserve mine too, because my farm is not as big as his own to make the connection he made.

^{picture of me carrying mushroom}

I grow yam at home in the village and back in the city where I live, I grow mushrooms.

For yam, whenever I harvest, I scrape out the soil from the yam, dry it briefly in the mild sun before storing it in the barn my father-in-law helped me to construct. The ones I brought to the city I keep in a dry place in the store.

Then for the mushrooms, I basically sun dry them. After sun-drying, the next thing is to dehydrate it. With that, it can last for 6 months or more. Before I discovered this method, I used to sun dry the mushrooms and manually dehydrate them using my pot. For that, *I place unused papers (preferably old newspapers) inside the pot, then place it on the fire, when it is hot, I then pour the mushrooms inside the pot. I leave it for some minutes on low heat, then spread it on the tray when it is cool, I'll pour it into plastic ziplock bags. That can make it stay for a longer period.

^{dried mushrooms and other ingredients}

The methods I'm using to preserve my produce have no single negative effects on humans during consumption because I make use of natural methods.

Unlike some farmers and sellers who use insecticides to preserve beans. It is safer to use natural methods to preserve our farm produce than using chemicals.

I invite
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