Ecovative Offers Mushroom Farmers A New Crop

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Farmland isn’t getting any more affordable or accessible. That is one the appeals to indoor agriculture, but the economics of growing vegetables are not always worth the investment. Eben Bayer, co-founder and CEO of Ecovative is offering a new revenue generating opportunity to those interested in growing mycelium.

Bayer... "Scale-up for us is all about global farms and having others adopt this crop, grow it with excellence, and do that as fast as possible. So grow the demand side, grow the distribution side, grow the processing side as fast as possible, and then work with farmers around the world to convert this as a crop that we hope is a big win for them and lets us have a big win for the customer."

Bayer says growing mycelium is no different than traditional mushroom farming systems.

Bayer... "We'll tap into where those farms exist. I mean, ideally we're going to reuse existing infrastructure and upgrade its capacity. I imagine new capacity will get built over time and we want to distribute that around the globe. Just like the mushroom industry is distributed today and we fit really neatly into existing processing infrastructure as well. Pork processing infrastructure because we make a very meat-like product. And so, you know, we really view this as slotting into the supply chain that exists. There's no separation step. No other bioprocess we do is like that."

Ecovative has now started working with operations in the US, Canada and the Netherlands.