Chicago agriculture tour brings rural and urban producers together
FarmWeek/ Erin Henkel
Evans said the garden became a place where he felt safe and learned the impact farming can have on community.
By Erin M. Henkel
Daily Journal
FarmWeek Dec 16, 2023
Excerpt:
This year’s urban agriculture experience included three stops: Windy City Mushroom, Green Era Chicago and Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery. Each visit provided a different perspective on producing in the city and the opportunities for collaboration with rural producers in ensuring food security.
As participants stepped off the bus at the first stop at a building resembling a warehouse, it was a pleasant surprise to walk inside to the familiar sight of an auger.
“We think there’s a huge problem in our food system that we need to be providing people with real food, not synthetic, hybrid, processed or adulterated food,” John Staniszewski, co-owner, head of sales and mycologist for Windy City Mushroom, told FarmWeek. “Being able to offer this up to the community at a low, affordable cost is really what we’re trying to accomplish here.”
Windy City Mushroom was founded at the start of the COVID pandemic due to a shortage of healthy food options, including mushrooms, in the city.
The operation grows three main types of mushrooms: oyster, maitake and lion’s mane, and is planning on expanding the facility. Because mushrooms differ from traditional crops, the company has relied on innovation and experimentation to develop their growing process.
The process includes inoculating a brick of soy-hull and hardwood dust with the different fungi spores and letting the spores incubate and consume the biomass, before moving them into converted shipping containers serving as climate-controlled grow rooms.
Staniszewski said using soy-hull as a substrate presents the opportunity for collaboration.
