Banana is predominantly cultivated in the district after coconut and yields high residual waste after banana harvesting. The substrate based on banana pseudo-stem is the most recommended for oyster mushroom cultivation. The banana farmers will be encouraged to take up mushroom cultivation for augmenting the exiting income sources. The pseudo stem, petiole and midrib of banana, which are usually abandoned to rot will be used as substrate. The method is less expensive owing to the easy availability of residue and offers double the yield compared to the use of straw for mushroom production. The cultivation also assures house hold nutritional security and assures more income with less investment. The daily agricultural wage labourers will also be formed as SHGs and will be encourage to take up this alternate income generation activity. Though the standardization of this intervention we will assure maximum returns to the SC community without much investment. The SC communities will also be trained on spawn production and maintain the quality of the spawn.

Three types of income generation models are associated with this intervention. One is Spawn production which is also sold to the house holds to cultivate mushrooms directly. Second one is mushroom cultivation and the third model is segregation of mushrooms based on their size.

Beneficiaries will collect the fresh banana stem. Spawn is collected from the centralized spawn production unit. Specifically acclimatized spawn is added to the pasteurised material and beds formed. Humidity, temperature are controlled and mycelium growth is visualised. Pins heads sprout from the mycelial knots and grow into the fruiting bodies which are harvested. Fresh mushrooms are sorted, cleaned and packed asceptically. Mushrooms are graded depending on the size.

Coconut being the predominant crop in the area, there exist lot of bye products of coconut which will be put into maximum use. There is a huge demand for activated charcoal in the nearby industries and gold smiths. This will open up new income generation activities in the area. Mini semi-automatic fiber extractor and grader (downscaling) will also be developed for house-hold operation to further strengthen the existing livelihood on coir rope making in the SC communities. Efforts will also be made to use coir pith as substrate for mushroom cultivation and the entire process will be standardized for further replication.

Existing Technique of utilization of coconut:
Coconut Husk used for extraction of fiber and coco peat, coconut fiber is converted to ropes, mats and other conventional products by semi mechanized methods. Coconut shell is under utilized.

Novelty in the proposed solution:
Semi automatic coconut husk processing line with fiber grading and rope making machine. Coconut shell shall be converted to Powder and Granular Activated carbon for use in Industry. Coco pith shall be converted to Bio-potash (fertilizer). The proposed technological intervention can be extended to Toddy Palms, date palms and Palm oil industry wastes which are in abundance in the region and are presently burnt off creating pollution issues.

Biopotash:
Coir Pith is rich in ProAnthocyanidins and Potassium. These constituents are removed traditionally by steeping in water. In the proposed intervention the leaching is enhanced by extraction in hot water. The hot water is rich in the two components and the water is evaporated using the waste heat. The condensate is further used to extract a fresh batch of coir pitch. The concentrated liquor is further dried and crystallized and used as Biopotash which meets the Organic fertilizer grade as per FCO.

Coconut shells are shredded, cleaned and pyrolyzed in a designated unit. Syngas generated in the process shall be used in the extractor to extract and concentrate bio potash. Low heat pyrolysis and steam explosion will provide high quality activated carbon and provide a high value product.

The villages adjoining the target villages has huge production of oil palm where the SC communities go as labourers for harvesting the oil palm manually which involve lot of drudgery and occupational hazards. The proposed intervention will help in harvesting with ease and safety.

Manual plucking by workers is done by using a long stick connected with a sickle to cut the fruit bunch. Because of this, workers of palm oil harvesting suffer from severe neck and shoulder pain and frequently immature fruit bunches are also harvested leading to poor quality of harvest.

A light weight adjustable hydraulic harvester with camera and pulley attached will be developed which can also tether the bunches to prevent falling of bunches and damage of fruits is prevented. Operator can check whether the fruit bunch is ready to harvest or not and safely retrieve the bunches.