Coffee Growers Mull Move to Mushrooms

It’s no secret that fungi thrive on waste, and one thing Colombia has plenty of is coffee debris, from dead coffee trees to discarded bean husks. Enter a new export crop: mushrooms.

Colombia, the world’s second-largest coffee producer, is experimenting with growing gourmet mushrooms on tons of coffee litter. The mushroom project’s organizers say if all goes well, in 10 years Colombia could be earning up to $1 billion a year exporting the edible fungi.

That’s about half as much as the $2 billion Colombia earned last year from exports of coffee. Yet world coffee prices have fallen to $1.22 a pound in May from $1.40 a year ago, and from a peak of $3.59 a pound in May 1997, and prices could fall even further as top producer Brazil looks at a bumper harvest.

“Since Latin America produces only 0.2% of all mushrooms cultivated in the world, Colombia could envision a long-term strategy providing income and jobs,” said Gunter Pauli, the Belgian scientist whose think tank is spearheading the project.

Colombia’s Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers has been sponsoring the mushroom tests conducted by Pauli’s Zero Emissions Research Initiative, a $12-million-a-year environmental think tank based in Geneva that claims it can tap into the talents of more than 3,000 scientists worldwide.

The initial results are better than expected, according to ZERI. Ten kilograms (22 pounds) of coffee-tree sawdust produced 5.5 kilos of shiitake mushrooms in only about three months. The mushrooms, which are increasingly popular in salads and in sauces, sell for up to $100 per dried kilo on the world market.

“It’s attractive because it would use our infrastructure and materials that are readily available in Colombia,” said Emilio Echeverry, administrative manager for the coffee federation.

What’s more, the coffee waste is high in phenol, a toxin ideal for growing mushrooms but good for little else.

“As world coffee prices decline, Colombia’s 350,000 coffee farmers are going to see their incomes decline next year,” Pauli said. “But if we can convince them to go into mushrooms, I’m sure that in 10 years that would be a billion-dollar business here.”

ZERI has proposed the Colombian government begin a mushroom-growing research and training unit and start growing mushrooms on 4,000 farms, at an estimated investment of $12 million over the first three years.

Mushrooms also could help Colombia launch biotech health products.

“Out of 10 of the major anti-cancer products sold in Japan, three are from mushrooms,” Pauli said.

Plans to turn coffee waste into mushrooms are just one of projects that ZERI is conducting around the world--from reforestation in Colombia’s eastern plains to composting in Sweden to making bamboo-reinforced cement slabs in Japan.