"There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” Zora Neale Hurston, American folklorist and author, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
Aah the joys of reviewing the year that was - looking back to last year’s review one can marvel at how uncomplicated the scene was - the only disturbance was Brexit. That soon changed…
January opened with a piece on a new machine that enriched vitamin D in mushrooms from Hampshire based company Jenact. Who knew the role of vitamin D in our lives would become much more under the spotlight. Iceland stores were launching plant-based steak made from mushrooms. The Mushroom Council in the US was using social media campaigns, matching star signs with types of mushrooms. The euro stood at €1.17 equal to £1 sterling on the foreign exchange markets.
2019 was being looked at as one of the hottest on record, the second hottest in fact. There was mention of the upcoming exhibition in Somerset House in London - The Art, Design and Future of Fungi. Stalker had hoped to go visit that - but events soon managed to put paid to travel plans. There had been a report in The Sunday Times in the first week of January of a strange pneumonia-like illness reported out of Wuhan in China.
By February the coronavirus was on the radar worldwide. Even then, the extent to which the virus might impact on life was not fully comprehended. The report on food and drink exports reaching €13 billion featured with news that the previous year had been a challenging one for mushroom producers. Currency volatility was a major factor, but despite everything the mushroom category exports rose by 4 percent in 2019 to €104 million.
New research was showing that mushrooms could potentially help alleviate the features of pre-eclampsia, a dangerous medical condition that is experienced during pregnancy. The world’s oldest mushroom was discovered preserved in rock in the Democratic Republic of Congo - Stalker reckoned there could be a good joke in that one, but legal heads held sway and the joke was not pursued. The potential for future habitations on the Moon being made from mushroom mycelium was examined - NASA is currently working on such mushroom houses. Stalker mentioned the new coronavirus, which was noted as a black swan event - but as many commentators have written since, the threat of coronavirus was a known unknown. This year, looking forward to the year ahead, many of said commentators mention the threat of unknown unknowns. Makes the mind boggle doesn’t it.
Floating in a daze into March and the top note headline said it all - A New Reality. Indeed nearly one year on and we’re still adjusting as best as possible to the new reality.
February was noted as having been the wettest on record in Ireland. Brightening the mood a bit was a piece by Dr Michael Mosley on whether magic mushrooms were the new Prozac? Jury is still out on that one, but there has been a lot more chatter about the use of psilocybin in the treatment of depression.
Poland was noted as the largest producer of button mushrooms in the EU. In the US Monterey Mushrooms were launching a new campaign to educate retail dieticians and shoppers on the importance of vitamin D to overall health - a timely reminder indeed.
And the price of oil was discussed after a rout on the global markets decimated the price, down from over $60 a barrel to $30 a barrel in a day. The Covid-19 shock to the system was very apparent.
The April edition carried some useful information from Bord Bia, with support for food, drink and horticultural businesses facing the new situations obtaining with regards to the virus and maintaining safety.
Meanwhile the Northern Ireland agriculture minister, Edwin Poots, warned of a crisis in the agri-food industry hastened by lockdown. Officials in both jurisdictions in Ireland were scrambling to mitigate the worst outcomes caused by the initial strict lockdown due to the pandemic.
In Canada, the problem of oversupply was encountered as restaurants and catering establishments shut due to enforced lockdowns, leaving some suppliers left holding mushrooms that they had no choice but to destroy.
Demand for mushrooms in the domestic market remained strong. Mushroom sales were reportedly buzzing, which seems to have been the trend throughout the pandemic thus far. Perhaps the health messaging around mushrooms helped prop up demand, as the home cooking trend took off during national lockdowns. The pound lost more ground against the euro, reaching €1.15 during the month. Oil also fell to $20 a barrel, and actually entered negative price territory, a phenomenon we may never see again! However it showed just how bonkers things were for a while back then.
Weatherwise the lack of rainfall was remarked upon, after the wet February - the hardness of the ground underfoot a feature, as too was the fantastic florescence of the whin about the country.
The shape of the economic recession to come was also queried, was it to be a V, a U or and L?
Maundering into May the price of oil was looked at in a piece saying that it is the most important price in the world. Next to the price of oil, the precipitous fall in car sales seemed quite apposite. The annus horribilis for the car industry was only just beginning.
Stalker was pondering the sense that we had moved through the looking glass into a new weird world, with the wistful hope that things might be normalised by Christmas, a sad delusion as we now know. And yet that sense of hope is still there, just delayed by a season or two!
The Balmoral Show was a gap in the monthly landscape - basically all events and meetings and social normalcy were cancelled until further notice. Sterling took another dive, £1 was now trading at €1.11, a 35 year low which indicated that the Brexit barometer was pointing firmly toward no-deal.
New protocols for workplaces had been published in both jurisdictions, and outbreaks of covid amongst workers in the meat factories was a concern.The protective value of vitamin D with regards to covid was being highlighted, something which still needs highlighted especially in these darker days we are currently experiencing. The sunniest April on record had made the first national lockdown much more tolerable - we can only dream of such bright days ahead. And the question of customs posts at the ports in Northern Ireland was highlighted - the question of customs between the island of Ireland and GB has become ever more pertinent as we now are in the post-Brexit scenario, with the new friction of duties and forms becoming apparent.
Glowing plants using mushroom genes was another item mentioned - their potential uses sounded like the stuff of science fiction.
Jauntily into sunny June we did proceed with news that Stalker had been replaced by Stalkerbot, but nobody noticed. Okay, not really, but news of journalists being replaced by robots at MIcrosoft came as no surprise. The trend in replacing real people with real machines is increasing exponentially - expect your job to be next seems to be the messaging.
There was some tragic news of deaths on farms and in a horticultural facility - the problem of accidents in the sector is still worrisome. There was news of the UK government moving to legalise gene-editing for food crops, something which is becoming more of a reality now, post Brexit. This powerful tool is expected to change things in both agriculture, medicine and other fields in the coming years ahead. The Siberian summer was causing alarm bells to ring among climate scientists - those alarm bells are still ringing. And a note on the story of a potential coronavirus outbreak in Victorian times gave pause for hope that this pandemic may be transitory.
One chef was also telling folk that they’ve been cooking mushrooms all wrong - they should be boiling them. Stalker was not so convinced by that! Oil was up, and the pound was down. And the news from the Irish hort sector was tempered by risks arising from peat harvesting restrictions - that’s a story that is continuing to cause consternation in many places.
Jumping joyfully into July, when it felt like a bit of normality had returned - even if it was only for a short while. Bord Bia were launching their ‘Best in Season’ campaign, a worldwide mushroom atlas was completed by the Czech Academy of Sciences. The summer madness had begun with the posting of the new minister of agriculture in Ireland - in came Barry Cowen, only to be outgoing within 7 days. In came Dara Calleary only to subsequently be consumed by ‘Golfgate’. The euro was up, standing at €1.09 to the pound. An outbreak on a mushroom farm in Canada presaged events later in the summer in Ireland. CMP were advertising for their capital investment programme for the upcoming year. And the quote of the month was “If there is no deal with the EU, the whole British food supply chain will disintegrate.”
Hightailing it into high summer, and August saw Northway PO advertising for its upcoming capital investment programme. The feared scenario arose with the news that covid had infected workers in a mushroom facility in Co. Tipperary, causing the suspension of operations there. Nutrition research from Australia was highlighted, which showed the benefits of eating mushrooms as part of one’s overall diet. A new film narrated by Brie Larson was highlighted, called Fantastic Fungi, something that could enliven an evening during the long winter lockdown perhaps. The storing sales of mushrooms was mentioned - large flats were especially popular on the barbies this summer. The incipient second wave of the virus was mentioned in notes, as was one top scientist in London noting that “ We don’t know anything. We’re exploring the boundaries of knowledge. And a pandemic is a boundary of knowledge.” The 747 Jumbo Jet was consigned to the history pages. The nature of the recession caused by the pandemic was also discussed - some commentators in the UK reckoned the recession was over as summer sales helped eradicate earlier losses in the year. Losses at Bord Na Mona more than halved in the previous year. And a food company in the US was seeking approval for a mushroom vitamin D additive to mix with other food stuffs.
Sloping into September the slide of the pound against the euro continued with one pound equalling €1.08. The problem of horticultural peat was being aired, as the realisation that either “peat would be imported or the mushroom industry would leave Ireland”, as one TD put it.
The Mushroom Machine Gamechanger was featured in the issue, with the promise of “bringing your picking into the 21st century”. Straw prices per bale were up on the previous year. The extended uses of sporekill were noted, an important bit of information for mushroom growers using the disinfectant.
News of nasty niffs emanating from the new compost facility in the North also got a brief airing. Brexit and Covid were both big news during the month - they are the stories that are set to run and run. An article entitled The Future is Fungal distilled some of the themes that Merlin Sheldrake covers in his impressive new book Entangled Life.
The musical chair game at the Irish ministry for agriculture finally settled with Donegal TD Charlie McConalogue taking over the portfolio. So far his luck has held good! On the EU stage, the former Latvian prime minister Valdia Dombrovskis filled the slot vacated by Phil Hogan after his resignation in late August, due to ‘Golfgate’. World EV day was also noted - it is the shape of the future, a future that may not be so far away.
Oddly, October came with little fanfare this year - the autumnal mushroom month when one can normally expect conference reports and the like from all over the globe. This year the peat harvesting legal limbo was making the news. The Dutch mushroom sector was reported as continuing to grow. Mushroom output figures for both Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland were looked at. The figures suggested that the northern industry was in more expansive mode over the previous decade than its southern counterpart. Storm Alex swept through the country with deluges of rain in all parts. The European project Bioschamp was highlighted - the aim of the project is to find alternative biological media for mushroom growing.
Scully Grower Supplies were showcasing their new improved picking scales which they had developed in conjunction with growers and producer organisations. The warming of the planet was also noted, with September logged as the hottest ever on record. Supercomputer Fugaku got a mention this month as well, the fastest machine on the planet (perhaps) being put to good use in the pandemic. A report from Kew Gardens had identified 1,886 new to science fungi, showing there is a lot out there in the biosphere that we know nothing about.
As we nudged into November, with lockdown version 2.0 burgeoning, reports were coming in that mushroom sales remained strong. ”We have noticed an increased consumer demand” said Noel Hegarty of The UK & Irish Mushroom Producers.
New port checks due to Brexit got a mention, as did the ‘crisis busters’ teams that London was deploying to help head off potential disruption. The disposal of mushroom industry waste got some attention - the problem of dealing with attendant waste products from the industry is an European wide concern.
News of covid vaccine approvals was just beginning to happen - the covax roll-out seemed tantalisingly close. Bord Bia’s “Just Add Mushrooms'' promotional campaign was noted to be coming to an end, after three years. UK logistics companies were bemoaning the lack of Brexit preparedness due to the lack of certainty, and detail, around the deal, or no deal, exit from the EU.
Legro were making moves on the continent, securing their position in the mushroom sector. Finally French foragers were being warned not to trust the latest fungi identification app, after many cases of posiosings were presenting to hospitals là-bas.
December arrived with hopes of a better year ahead. Lockdowns were eased and a “meaningful” Christmas beckoned. There was news of upcoming celebrations for Mush Comb, with their 25th anniversary just around the corner at the start of 2021. Brexit had yet to be decided, but as we know now, the skinniest of deals was eventually concluded - even though it ran to thousands of pages.
Mushroom sales had garnered their best year in a quarter century according to industry insiders. The versatility of mushrooms and new fungal technology was laid out in a piece examining the many uses of mushrooms.
Some European observers were hinting at the demise of the blue plastic mushroom tray - it might be around for a good while yet. Vitamin D was being advocated for older folk - but there’s evidence that everyone one of us could do with upping our intake of vitamin D to ward of covid and other ailments. The pound ended the year slightly up at around €1.12. Oil was hovering around $55 per barrel.
With strict lockdown - version 3.0 - returning swiftly after Christmas and rocketing positive virus cases, the end of 2020 and the start of 2021 didn’t seem to hold much in the way of optimism. But with the roll-out of vaccines worldwide, a new administration in the White House, and the Brexit deal completed - there are grounds for hope rolling into 2021. It will no doubt throw up many challenges, but fingers crossed, this year will be more fun guys.
