2023-12-15 21:00:00
In cell number 4 of Ruud van Asseldonk’s mushroom farm in Nistelrode it is damp, stuffy and a bit clammy. Parallel to the long aisle are two four-storey ‘flats’: more than a meter narrow, several tens of meters long. On each floor there is a bed of rough horse manure with straw, with a blanket of casing soil on top.
The air conditioning system here is clearly set to ‘sweltering late summer day’. And that is not surprising: it is the first cell door that manager Dawid Wasylik has opened. This is the initial stage of mushroom cultivation. Nothing is visible yet of the fungi: yet they are already in the fertile manure layer. Ready to undergo the accelerated fall that the mushroom business is experiencing here.
The period from start to harvest takes approximately two and a half weeks. A cycle that continues continuously in the cells of the Brabant company, and can therefore be viewed step by step. In cell 3 the mushrooms have already been on their way for a few days: the casing soil turns white, and very carefully some white buds can be seen. One door further – on day eight – the first mushrooms are already clearly visible.
Position October
Another half a week later, the first mushrooms are ready for picking. The temperature in this cell is already considerably lower: comparable to a cool October day. Van Asseldonk’s employees, mainly middle-aged Polish women, harvest the mushrooms from an electrically height-adjustable platform. A precise job, says Wasylik, who also came to the Netherlands as a picker in 2011.
“You have to look exactly at which mushrooms are best to pick out,” he says. These are not necessarily the largest. If a number of mushrooms are growing close together, it is advisable to harvest at least some. “With a little more space, the others can develop better. That is the art of the picker,” points out Ko Hooijmans, member of the LTO mushroom department and training consultant.
New growth
Hooijmans has been involved in the mushroom world for decades. A somewhat unknown, but certainly not negligible corner of agricultural Netherlands. The sector is mainly concentrated around three locations: in the Bommelerwaard near Kerkdriel, around Horst aan de Maas in North Limburg and in the vicinity of Uden, where Van Asseldonk is also located.
“At the end of the last century, there were still around 700 companies there,” Hooijmans looks back. But here too, economies of scale were the norm. Mushroom companies also competed mainly on cost price, the small ones disappeared and the large nurseries became larger. Production decreased slightly, but mainly the number of companies decreased. “We were always the third country in the world, now Poland has surpassed us,” says Hooijmans.
As far as he is concerned, this decline is not a disaster. But the sector is now starting to approach a critical lower limit. Especially because the Vakschool for Mushroom Cultivation in Horst also closed its doors years ago.
It prompted LTO Noord to start a new vocational training course. That seems somewhat illogical, because almost all mushroom companies are located in the area of the southern LTO branches ZLTO and LLTB. But that has everything to do with the enthusiasm of initiator Robert Veenstra, who was already familiar with the mushroom sector and started working at LTO Noord.
Fourteen students
Fourteen students are now active in the new vocational training course, which covers the whole of the Netherlands. The intricacies of the grower’s trade are discussed: for example regarding compost, harvest and the indoor climate. Matters such as entrepreneurship and management are also part of the program. The participants include a number of intended business successors who want to take over their parents’ nursery. But also a number of employees who, as managers, need further training. This also applies to Dawid Wasylik, one of the three participants of Polish descent.
A sign that the mushroom sector relies heavily on migrant workers, but also a signal that there are opportunities for growth. Wasylik is now in charge of the day-to-day management of the location in Nistelrode, where the working language is almost exclusively Polish. Why are so few Dutch people interested in this work? “It’s not necessarily hard work. But I think many people still want to be home when the children come home from school.”
And that is not taken into account the growth rate of the mushroom. After regarding two weeks, the mushrooms develop very quickly. “So fast that you can’t just say: we’ll stop and we’ll continue once more tomorrow,” says Hooijmans. The harvest also continues during the weekend. “Although we do close at seven o’clock in the evening,” Wasylik puts things into perspective. “If at five o’clock I see that we cannot finish on time, we only take out the large ones. You can get people to work really hard, but then we lose them a few weeks later. The good thing is that many people have been working here for years.”
Sustainable meat substitute
The mushroom occupies a special place within the agricultural sector. The cultivation takes place exclusively indoors and the dependence on cheap labor is therefore great. Especially because the market also focuses strongly on low cost prices for mushrooms. Yet it is also a promising sustainable crop for the future. Coincidence or not, just this week the Health Council advised replacing meat more often with legumes and mushrooms.
Because the fungi are healthy, but also because the cultivation fits well into an agricultural cycle. Mushroom growers therefore use horse manure from riding schools as a basis for their beds. After the harvest, this nutrient medium can then be converted into the soil improver ‘champost’. “And they no longer use pesticides here,” Hooijmans emphasizes.
He predicts that the increase in scale in mushroom cultivation will continue for the time being. Although there are also some new, small-scale initiatives emerging: for example, growing oyster mushrooms on coffee grounds. Hooijmans also hopes that supermarkets and consumers will look at the Dutch product with more pride. “In France and Germany they increasingly advertise local products. This also means that Dutch mushrooms are becoming less popular there.” It would help, Hooijmans concludes, if the Netherlands also became more proud of its own mushrooms.
If he succeeds, and more new people with professional knowledge emerge thanks to the new training, he will look to the future with confidence. The mushrooms in cell 6 are almost harvested. The clocks will soon turn back here, from late autumn to sultry late summer. Until it can be picked once more in a week or two.
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