[San Diego, CA Permaculture] Mushroom Cultivation Manual for the Small Mushroom Entrepreneur HANDBOOK/DOWNLOAD PDF

wesley roe Santa Barbara Permaculture Network lakinroe at silcom.com
Fri Apr 27 07:52:22 PDT 2018


Mushroom Cultivation Manual for the Small Mushroom Entrepreneur/HANDBOOK/DOWNLOAD PDF
Gunter Pauli <https://www.facebook.com/gunter.pauli.9?fref=mentions>I am receiving daily requests "How can I farm mushrooms on coffee?" And of course yes you can! And then the question is ""Can you teach me?" 
http://www.mushroom-learning-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Mushroom-Cultivation-Manual.pdf <http://www.mushroom-learning-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Mushroom-Cultivation-Manual.pdf>

WORLD OF MUSHROOMS
Dr Gunter Pauli <https://www.facebook.com/gunter.pauli.9?fref=mentions> , Founder ZERI, Author “The Blue Economy”
I discovered the world of mushrooms in 1994 during a meeting organised in Beijing by the Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Prof. Dr. Carl-Göran Hedén, former Director of the Biology Department of Karolinska Institute, and Prof. Dr. Li Wenhua, Dean of the School of Environment of the Renmin University had invited a select group to discuss new ways of responding to the urgency to respond to the basic needs for people in terms of water, food, health, housing, energy and jobs. As the head of a think tank that was charged with formulating new ideas for business at the United Nations University in preparation of the Kyoto Protocol, that was to become a reality three years later I was a student in this room filled with scientists. Whereas all presentations inspired me, there was one that surprised me: Prof. Dr. Shu-ting Chang, the Dean of the Faculty of Bio- logical Sciences of the Chinese University of Hong Kong introduced the audience to his latest findings in mycology.

The simple and clear message made a lasting impression. First the fact that biowaste rich in fibres should never be left to rot or landfill, that it should turn into a substrate for mushroom farming. Instead of rotting debris that generates methane gas, mushrooms would produce food only emitting carbon dioxide. That was a breakthrough in the run-up for the global agreement on climate change. Second, mushrooms supply a wealth and breadth of essential amino acids in such abundance that if compared dry-base with meat, it could compete. This offered an insight that was very new to me, since I was hard- ly acquainted with the white button mushroom and never considered it nutritious. The talk of the day was not about this Agaricus bisporus, rather of the wealth and diversity of Chinese mushrooms which have been farmed over centuries including the shiitake.
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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION WORLD OF MUSHROOMS, Dr Gunter Pauli, Founder ZER, Author “The Blue Economy”
Prof. Shuting Chang made us realise that any country with a food processing industry could build up a mushroom business. I immediately invited him to join us for meetings in Windhoek at the University of Namibia, in Zimbabwe at Africa University, and in Colombia at the Federation of Coffee Farmers. His message was loud and clear: the straw of wheat, the water hyacinth from the lakes and the waste of coffee all served as a substrate for mushrooms. When ST, as friends call this guru of mycology, sat down with Dr. Jorge Cardenas, the President of the cooperative that united 650,000 coffee farming families he strongly advised the leadership that the future of coffee is not in producing more coffee, rather the future of coffee is in the transformation of all the coffee waste into mushroom substrates. CENICAFE, the research centre of the Coffee Federation embarked on a seven year program and studied every component from the stalks from the bush that need pruning, the pulp the is fermenting off the beans, the silver film of the roasted coffee, and the grounds after brewing was mapped for its use. It was like finding bonanza in a world that was passing through a harsh crisis.

Since only 0.2% of the coffee harvest is actually ingested, the opportunities are vast. The key is how to harness this opportunity, either on the farm, or at the point of consumption. Fortunately, a network of entrepreneurs emerged around these opportunities. These entrepreneurs were not located in the capital cities and were flush of cash, these were community leaders operating in the periphery of soci- ety like Carmenza Jaramillo in the peri-urban zones of Manizales, the Coffee Capital of Colombia, and Margaret Tagwira, the laboratory technician in charge of tissue culture who worked with orphan girls in Zimbabwe. Both realised that mushrooms on coffee is not just a biological process, it is an opportunity for a social transformation. Hundreds of entrepreneurs took notice and started small scale businesses. In the region of El Huila, 90 production centres were started in less than a few years and in Zimbabwe, hundreds of orphans found a new opportunity in life as the mushrooms provided them food security which gave them the self-confidence to fight against abuse.

When Chido Govera Chido <https://www.facebook.com/govera.chido?fref=mentions>, one of the first orphan girls to get trained at the age of eleven in the farming of mushrooms on grass clippings, corn cobs and water hyacinth, something that is within reach of ev- eryone, committed to bring this technique to everyone. She traveled throughout the country (and later throughout Africa and beyond) and when she explained at Chipinge (Zimbabwe) to women working the coffee farm for less than two dollars per day, that on the waste from the farm it is possible to get food for their children within a few weeks time, then these women would get up, sing, dance ... and do it. The farming of mushrooms once demonstrated that it works, through the cooking of a local dish, enriched with freshly harvested fruiting bodies, is followed-up by action. There is no need to write a strategic paper, a business plan, a strengths and weaknesses - opportunities and threats analysis, a pilot project or a technology audit. Farming mushrooms starts with an awareness that you have all what is needed available, and that if you put your mind to it, and follow a few basic hygiene rules, then you will be able to harvest ... perhaps even for the rest of your life.

Twenty years later, there are an estimated 5,000 mushroom on coffee farms. While a few have at- tempted to go for large scale production (like Setas de Colombia in Medellin), and one exploited the experiences to create a (failed) network of franchise mushroom farms, the initiatives have been grow- ing rapidly around the world from farms in Harare, to urban initiatives in San Francisco, and innovation hubs in Rotterdam where young entrepreneurs void of any exposure to mushroom farming in the centre of the city now have trained 30 others to start their business. Prof. Chang was keen on insisting that the farming of mushrooms was half science and half art, and indeed when Chido Govera farms mush- rooms it seems so easy, whereas others have to struggle to get going but once they master the art, it is a great satisfaction to witness the spreading of something that seems that simple and yet has many hurdles to overcome.

The main obstacle is the clarity that farming mushrooms is not just a potential business, it is also an opportunity to transform society, beyond climate change benefits. Mushrooms empower people, and provide access to healthy food, generating jobs, while transforming available resources (unfortunate- ly considered by many as waste), cascading food and nutrition, addressing fundamental social and ecological issues. While the creation of 5,000 farming operations is by many considered a remarkable result, it is by no means a success. The ZERI Network, this web of thousands of scientists and practi- tioners from around the world is convinced that the annual production of 10 million tons of coffee waste that continues to be discarded at farms, industries and cafes or restaurants provides enough material for at least one million initiatives. And if we consider coffee, why not consider tea, corn cobs, sawdust and rice straw all varieties of biomass that represent an ideal substrate for mushrooms to grow. We quickly see the creation of another 100 million tons of amino acids and the production of perhaps as much as 50 million tons of feed. These are major shifts in our capacity to produce food and respond to immediate needs alleviating hunger where it is needed most. Every refugee in any camp could learn how to farm mushrooms. And yet, we prefer to supply processed food in aluminium packs.

Mushrooms are not just healthy food, mushrooms hold the potential of transforming our modern day society into an entrepreneurial world, where we succeed in building up a more resilient community first and foremost because we transform biomass into food, and the waste of this food is most of the time a great feed for animals, cascading nutrition, matter and energy. It allows our economies to grow with- out expecting our Earth to produce more, we learn with the mushrooms how to do more with what the Earth already produces. This is a gift we received from our Chinese mentor, and a practice we learned from our African, Latin American and European mycologists who worked tirelessly in propagating this know-how open source, sharing what we learn, and learning from each other in order to offer society a chance to stamp out hunger, generate more jobs and empower young people to have a purpose in life.


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