Iwan Nursirwan

Iwan Nusyirwan is setting out to become the Johnny Appleseed of mushroom farming across Java. Trained in agriculture (and philosophy), he worked for some years with the homeless and unemployed who came to Jogjakarta's pavements as refugees of Java's rural poverty. Deciding that it was necessary to get at the root of the problem of rural flight in order to alleviate urban deprivation, he turned to cultivating mushrooms. Mushrooms are an ideal crop to raise in Java because they require virtually no land-- Java's scarcest resource.

Iwan trains potential mushroom farmers to develop the mushroom seed they need, provides ongoing counseling through growers' cooperatives, experiments with new species of mushrooms like wood mushrooms that flourish atop bits of wood floating over rice paddies. Iwan has also developed marketing cooperatives composed of street vendors who sell mushroom kabobs (or satay).