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the australian farmer
Where do you see opportunities for mushroom farming in Australia? What are some of the chal- lenges? The interest in more varieties of mushroom spe- cies is exploding. The opportunity is there for local producers to start meeting this rising demand, which for now, seems to be relatively ignored by large-scale mushroom operations. Local growers also have the advantage of being able to supply quality and freshness that imported product can’t compete with due to the fragile nature of the spe- cialty species and their short shelf life. The biggest challenge is the initial capital in- vestment in starting out, and the lack of consumer knowledge about gourmet mushrooms. Small growers need to educate and promote their prod- uct which can take up a lot of time that could be otherwise focused on producing. There is also a lack of supporting industry in Australia. In Europe and the US there are facilities that just make mush- room spawn, or just make fruiting substrate, then you have the farmers who just fruit and sell the mushrooms. Here, you have to do it all. What should the Government be doing to ensure Australian ag reaches its 2035+ potential? The Government need to change the labelling laws around the “Grown in Australia” claim for mushrooms. Mushrooms grown off imported logs and only fruited in Australia are allowed to be pack- aged as “Australian Grown” even though all the substrate, the water, and all the inputs those mush- rooms are growing from have been produced over- seas. This puts local growers under price pressure as they can’t produce a fruiting block as cheaply as overseas. Japan, the heartland of mushroom cultivation, has only just managed to lobby for this change in 2022 to protect their local mushroom industry so it will be a huge effort for Australian small growers to achieve this. The Government needs to better understand the growing process so the labelling laws can better reflect country of origin. Mush- rooms are bio-accumulators so it’s vital to know
what the inputs are. If there is any heavy metal con- tamination in your substrate, this will be present in the mushroom fruiting bodies. If you don’t have complete transparency with the overseas inputs and practices, this is a risk consumers may not be aware of. How hard is it to attract investors and scale up? As our farm has grown, we’ve had to set up each and every part of the growing process in order to support it. We produce our own mushroom cultures and spawn, we make our own fruiting substrates, and we grow and sell the mushrooms. We also sup- ply other small farms with mushroom spawn and growing supplies, and teach workshops to the pub- lic. It’s a lot to manage! We’ve made the decision to focus on scaling up the spawn and substrate areas of our business in order to provide more support to the fledgling specialty mushroom industry here. There’s a massive gap which we aim to fill. We’d be interested to speak to anyone who would want to help us grow a local industry.
Amy Pascoe is the co-founder of Little Acre Mush- rooms.
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