Shiitake mushrooms : permaculture site design and business plan
(Book - Regular Print)

Thesis,MSFS,Green Mountain College,2016

Includes bibliographical references.

In 2002, a representative from an organization called Living Routes spoke in my environmental ethics class at Green Mountain College. She was there to speak about study abroad opportunities that involved taking classes while staying in communities that practice living in harmony with nature, otherwise known as Eco Villages. She spoke about the curriculum at the Findhorn Foundation, an educational center started back in the 1960's by Peter and Eileen Cady, along with Dorothy Maclean, that later gained status as a charitable trust from the Scottish government. One of the classes that I took a particular interest in was Permaculture Design. This was a term coined by two Australians by the name of Bill Mollison and his student David Holmgren, meaning "Permanent Agriculture" (Findhorn Foundation 2015). Permaculture is a creative design process that involves ethics and principles based on cooperating with nature. Its focus is on whole systems thinking that mimics patterns and relationships in nature that can be applied to human habitation from agriculture, ecological building, appropriate small scale-technology, education, and even economics (Center for Bioregional Living 2016). By adopting these ethics and principles we shift our relationship with the food we eat from simply being consumers to the actual producers. This helps us gain more appreciation for the process involved in helping people become more self-reliant in order to contribute to their local communities in meaningful ways. In an age of uncertainty, whether it is a rise in food prices due to drought and a lack of available water or disruptions in energy supply, it is vital to feel self-empowered and secure your family's future and show others how to do the same. Ten years after my journey to Findhorn, I decided to go back to graduate school after getting a brochure from Green Mountain College that advertised a new online Masters of Science 3 degree in Sustainable Food Systems. At first, I was a little skeptical because I had never been exposed to online education. After a few classes, I began to really look forward to coming home and entering the online forum to communicate with my classmates on various readings surrounding the many issues associated with industrial agriculture. Classes like History of American Agriculture gave me the perspective on how we became a nation that practiced subsistence agriculture to one of mechanization, which allowed us to feed more people contributing to a growth in population. At the same time, it created a whole host of problems such as monocultures that were heavily reliant on chemical pesticides and herbicides that became a detriment to our natural resources and human health. The Theory and Practice of Sustainable Agriculture class further explored the organic agriculture categories such as biodynamics, bio- intensive, permaculture, and natural farming that offered solutions to our current dilemma, and the Livestock class delved deep into factory farming and animal welfare issues associated with its practice. The problems of the world can be daunting at times. However, the fact that we are discussing these problems and putting them in to proper perspective means there is hope to overcome them. Before I had taken my final class Turning Traditions into Marketplace, I had decided that I would sign up to take a class to receive my certificate in permaculture design from the Center for Bioregional Living run by Andrew Faust, a Permaculture educator, and designer. I was not exactly sure what my main area of focus for my capstone would be until I returned from South Tyrol and wrote a paper on wild mushrooms that began to spark my interest in this subject. Fungi are fascinating to me because they have the ability to break down waste and can even be used as a tool for bioremediation. The forest floor is often littered with leaves from the previous season, which plants cannot directly grow on. The mycelium, the vegetative part of the fungus exudes 4 powerful enzymes and acids that breakdown lignin and cellulose. The rich material known as humus is the result of the decomposition of leaves and wood supplying the soil with a web of nutrients (Rhodes 2014). When I presented my design concept in December of 2014, at the conclusion of the permaculture course, I chose my parents property as my design site. Since the soil is very rocky and the property is very shady from the surrounding trees, growing mushrooms and creating a forest garden seemed like a natural choice. Creating a forest garden through permaculture design methods and coming up with a business plan to sell shiitake mushrooms to local restaurants, farmers markets, and through a CSA is both a challenging and adventurous proposition, but certainly attainable for someone on a limited budget.