A fungus for good: How mushrooms are solving problems in Mass.

Inside the historic building of the printers in the center of the city Worcesterhundreds of edibles mushrooms they are proliferating in an old storage room.

Oyster, shiitake and lion’s mane species grow from “fruity” sawdust blocks under humidity tents, and will soon be on people’s plates.

Betting heavily on the urban mushroom company is the Southeast Asian Coalition of Central Massachusetts. The project, which has received thousands in grants, aims to combat food insecurity while providing a source of revenue for the Worcester-based nonprofit that serves Laotian, Cambodian and Vietnamese immigrants and refugees.

Tuyet Tran, the organization’s executive director, is a refugee from Vietnam. In his native country, his mother was a farmer.

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“I’ve always loved growing things, growing vegetables,” Tran said. “We consider food, especially herbs, as medicine. It comes naturally to us. The idea of ​​mushrooms really expanded from that notion.”

The coalition venture was among two mushroom-focused projects selected in a recent round of grants from the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources. The other is at East Boston’s Eastie Farman urban agriculture non-profit working on food security and climate justice.

In both cases, community organizations wanted to strengthen their food supply in the communities they serve, while making a profit by selling the rest to local restaurants and farmers’ markets.

“There is a lot of interest in mushrooms,” said Kannan Thiruvengadam, director of Eastie Farm. “They have always been of interest to the people who do it looking for food and permaculture because it grows naturally in forests, as long as you know what to harvest and how to harvest it.”

Not all mushrooms are edible, and some are poisonous. Others are more psychedelic than Massachusetts voters rejected on the November 2024 ballot.

A joke between mushroom pickerslaughed Thiruvengadam, it’s ‘you can taste any mushroom once’.

“I want it to become a social enterprise”

The catalyst for mushroom growth for both Eastie Farm and the Southeast Asian Coalition of Central Massachusetts was the same: The COVID pandemic made them want to boost food security efforts in the face of deep social inequities and sanitary facilities exposed.

In Worcester, Tran said food is an incredibly important part of her mission, especially because of the prominence of refugees and homeless populations.

They were already well connected to local farms and seasonal produce, but the organization wanted to provide a self-sustaining offering throughout the year. Tran herself had been learning about edible mushrooms at home during the pandemic.

“We wanted to grow mushrooms because it’s part of the diet of Asian people,” he said.

The coalition’s website tells visitors: “No, we’re not turning people into zombies, and no, we’re not dabbling in the psychedelic arts. What we’re doing is much more magical: growing nutrient-packed mushrooms to nourish our communities and fight food insecurity.”

Mushrooms are said to have powerful health benefits, including anti-cancer and immune system-stimulating properties. And because of their exposure to ultraviolet light, either sunlight or indoor light, they are a good source of vitamin D.

Different mushrooms are known for different benefits. Lion’s mane, for example, is touted for brain health, while reishi is known for its anti-stress and relaxing effects.

The effort began with a $120,000 grant from the Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, outfitting an old storage room with water, lights, shelving and growing equipment inside the Portland Street building that houses the Southeast Asian Coalition of Central Massachusetts.

Between September and December they harvested more than 800 kilos of mushrooms. Tran said it’s been quite a learning process, but a welcome and fun one.

“I had no idea how hard it was to grow mushrooms,” he said. “You really have to control the environment. The humidity, the temperature, the water misting.”

The mushrooms, which are organically grown, are distributed to families, shelters, senior centers and temples. The goal is also to sell them to local restaurants and farmers markets for a small profit for the organization.

“We want to be able to sell some, get the money back, pay the water and electricity bill,” Tran said. “We can grow a lot. It’s all part of the plan. You start small and work your way up to a higher volume. I want it to become a social enterprise.”

Tran hopes a workforce development opportunity will come from it, especially if they get a commercial kitchen for high-volume mushroom processing and drying.

“Food, Agriculture and Education”

At Eastie Farm, $40,000 from the Department of Agricultural Resources will support the construction of a mushroom production center. It certainly helps that two members of the staff are “super excited about mushrooms,” Thiruvengadam said.

Eastie Farm has locations around East Boston where they invite neighbors to grow food together, collect boxes of produce and learn more about the natural environment.

East Boston has the highest percentage of immigrants of any neighborhood in Boston. And it’s also one of the most vulnerable communities in the state to pollution and the impacts of climate change.

In 2022, Eastie Farm debuted a zero-emission geothermal greenhouse, believed to be the first of its kind in Massachusetts. Climate resilience is at the core of the organization’s mission, Thiruvengadam said.

“What we’re trying to do here is empower ourselves so that we can not only prepare for what’s coming, but also serve the needs of our people today,” he said. “Food, Agriculture and Education”.

During COVID, Eastie Farm rented kitchens that were closed and served more than 5,000 hot meals each week at the height of the pandemic.

The nutrient-rich mushrooms will be part of the farm’s ongoing food security efforts. They will be used in CSA meals and boxes, and will likely go to restaurants at market price.

“Most of what we do really comes from what we hear in the community and what young people express to us as an interest,” Thiruvengadam said. “The mushroom farm will be a space for young people to learn how things work and what nature grows. How to process safely, how to cook and consume, how to make new things”.