A call to boycott mushrooms in order to protect peat bogs has been made in the UK by The Wildlife Trusts, an umbrella charity for 46 British conservation groups.
Apparently the National Trust has reduced use at its 300 cafés and restaurants after it could not find a supplier of mushrooms grown without peat.
Dr Ralph Noble was quoted in The TImes: He said: “We are making promising progress on replacing peat in mushroom casing with a mix of materials like coir in small-scale experiments, but there is a big difference between that and getting it to work on a large commercial scale. The deadline is 2030 and that is the target for us.”
Padraic O’Leary, chief executive of Walsh Mushrooms Group, was quoted as well, he said: “This campaign is an absolute shame. Mushrooms are a superfood as a source of vitamins and it is a massive industry, generating a lot of income and wages with all the livelihoods that depend on it.”
