A new facility being constructed in North Augusta Township will provide compost for mushroom growers. (Nelson Zandbergen photo)
Composting operation to support production of 40-million pounds mushrooms annually
Nelson Zandbergen
Farmers Forum
BROCKVILLE — A $68-million facility that will turn wheat straw into mushroom compost is nearing completion in rural Augusta Township, east of Brockville. After more than a year of construction, the 600,000-square-foot facility is now projected to begin operating in October.
Three mushroom farms — Carleton Mushroom Farms of Ottawa, Sharon Mushroom Farm of Newmarket and Champag Inc. of Verchères, Quebec – teamed up for this joint operation incorporated as Eastern Ontario Mushroom Producers. They are seeking area farmers to supply them with 20,000 tonnes of large bales of wheat straw each year — equivalent to 12 tractor trailer loads per week.
In turn, the operation will supply the mushroom farms with compost produced at greater economies of scale and better energy efficiency than current sources, according to Carleton Mushroom Farms co-owner Mike Medeiros.
Medeiros’ Osgoode-area organic farm currently produces an enormous 200,000 lb. of mushrooms each week, he said, using compost from two Toronto-based suppliers. That’s enough mushrooms to fill 10 tractor trailers with standard trays of mushrooms found in the grocery stores.
His farm hasn’t made its own compost since the late 1990s, which is not unusual in the industry. With the switch to compost from the Eastern Ontario source, Medeiros plans to expand Carleton Mushroom’s production by another 120,000 to 130,000 pounds per week, he said.
Mike Medeiros (Nelson Zandbergen photo)
Forty per cent of Canadian mushroom production is exported to the United States, though Meideros said that his own farm is an exception and doesn’t export very much. He and his partners account for about 25 % of the Ontario mushroom market, he said.
The new composting operation will make enough compost to support the production of 40 million pounds of mushrooms annually, enough to supply the three involved farms, while lowering the mushroom cropping cycle to about five weeks.
The compost will be pasteurized and then “incubated” with mushroom mycelium before transport to the farms for the final “fruiting” — mushroom-growing — stage.
The operators have already reached out to farmers to supply the required wheat straw, said Medeiros. He expects to advertise for the straw and said they’re currently offering an above-market price of $165/tonne. A special telephone number will be set up to handle inquiries from farmers with straw to sell, he added.
He also noted that the new facility will lower the carbon footprint of the partnering farms. In addition to making compost more efficiently with state-of-the-art equipment, the facility’s closer proximity to Medeiros’s farm will cut his compost-trucking activities by 4,000 km per year.
On a related front, he doesn’t hold out much hope of the current government in Ottawa eliminating the carbon tax on fuels used by mushroom producers. He estimates that the tax will cost him $170,000 on top of his farm’s natural gas bill this year. “It’s actually more for the carbon tax than it is for the natural gas,” he exclaimed, adding that the tax is set to rise again on April 1st. By 2030, unless something changes, his farm’s carbon tax bill will hit $500,000.
On the other hand, according to Medeiros, the industry hasn’t given up persuading the bureaucrats at the Canadian Revenue Agency to reinterpret the existing carbon-tax rules and give mushroom-growing buildings the same 80 % rebate as greenhouses. “It’s not fair … We’re (both) growing food under cover.”
