ABSTRACT
The global food and nutritional security of growing population is a great challenge, which looks for new crop as source of food and nutrition. In this context, mushrooms find a favor, which can be grown even by landless people, that too on waste material and could be a source for proteinous food. Use of mushrooms as food and nutraceutical have been known
since time immemorial, as is evident from the description in old epics Vedas and Bible. Earlier civilizations had also valued mushrooms for delicacy and therapeutic value. In the present time, it is well recognized that mushroom is not only rich in protein, but also contains vitamins and minerals, whereas, it lacks cholesterol and has low calories. Furthermore, it also has high medicinal attributes like immune-modulating, antiviral, antitumor, antioxidants and hepatoprotective properties. With the growing awareness for nutritive and quality food by growing health conscious population, the demand for food including mushrooms is quickly rising and will continue to rise with increase in global population which will be 8.3 million by 2025 and flexible income (Singh, 2011). The mushroom cultivation has grown up in almost all the parts of the world and during last three decades, the world mushroom production achieved the growth rate of about 10%. Globally, China is the leading producer of mushrooms with more than 70% of the total global production, which is attributed to community, based farming as well as diversification of mushrooms. In India, owing to varied agro-climate and abundance of farm waste, different types of temperate, tropical and subtropical mushrooms are cultivated throughout the country.
