Import and Export Trend of India

MUSHROOM PRODUCTION- GLOBAL SCENARIO, PROSPECTS IN INDIA

~By Dr. Manjit Singh

Global Scenario

Mushroom production on commercial scale started in 1950s and world mushroom production in 1960 was only 0.17 million tonne (MT) that in six decades became 45 MT. As we can see in Fig 1, growth was slow in first two decades, started picking up in next two decades and there was exponential growth in the last two decades representing 21st Century. World mushroom production is likely to reach 50 million tonne in coming few years.

Mismatch in FAOSTAT and other sources

Majority of research publications refer to FAOStat database. FAOStat data few years ago showed world mushroom production around 11 MT. We highlighted the anomalies in data in our publications (Singh et al., 2017. 2018, 2020, 2021). We interacted with Statistical Division of FAO. As a result FAO has updated data for many countries like Japan, China, India, Canada, etc. As a result of these corrections, the world mushroom production data for 2021 as per FAOStat is 44.2 MT (Fig 2) that is very close to our estimates.

As a result workers have started using the FAOStat data to describe world production trends (Bijla & Sharma, 2023). FAO data, however, still needs correction for many countries like South Korea (Table 6), Bangladesh (Ferdousi et al., 2019) and many other Asian and African countries. Further, species wise data is not available in FAOStat and we worked it out for the year 2018-19 (Singh et al., 2020) and same has been used in many publications including Bijla & Sharma, 2023. In the present publication we have estimated the species wise data for 2020 as shown in Fig 4.

Perusal of FAOStat data for the current century indicates that in first decade the percent yearly increase in world mushroom production was around 10 percent that started declining thereafter and in last seven years became 3% or so (Fig 3). Growth is declining in the developed world and developing countries have not reached the take off stage. However, the growth in many countries like India has increased rapidly in last decade.

Production in China is concentrated in Eastern region of China and five out of 31 provinces viz., Henan, Fujian, Shandong, Heilongjiang and Hebei accounted for 50% of the total production in 2019 (Fig 6).

At times the production of China appears too much. It must be remembered that China is a big country with large population and cultivating over 60 species. Production of any crop is a function of population and area of a country. If we compare the production of China vs The Netherlands on the basis of population, production of mushrooms per person per year (Fig 9.), we can see that on population basis China produced 1/3rd of Netherlands in 2000, equalled in 2010 and is now producing double than that of Netherlands. It may be mentioned here that China is producing more than 60 species of mushrooms whereas Netherlands mainly produces button only.

If we compare the production on area basis, that is, production per square kilometre per year, the Netherlands produced about 9 times in 2000, three times in 2010 and 1.5 times in 2020 (Fig 10). Thus production as such may not be the issue. However, Netherlands exports about 80% of its production as fresh or canned whereas China exports less than five percent of its production. As a result, consumption of mushroom per person per year in China is about 27 kg and in Netherlands it is about three kg. However, if we compare the consumption of button mushroom alone in the two countries, then the consumption of button in China may be only one kg per person per year as compared to 3 kg in Netherlands.

Five Genera viz., Lentinula, Pleurotus, Auricularia, Agaricus and Flammulina are major contributors. The production of these genera in China is as in Table 1. In last decade there have been changes in relative contribution of these genera to the total mushroom production in China (Fig 11).

In China, unlike Europe, USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and other developed countries, major contribution to the total mushroom production is from seasonal cultivation. It was 91% in 2019 (CEFA) where, Shiitake, Auricularia spp, Pleurotus osteratus was cultivated exclusively as a seasonal activity (Fig 12) and more than half of Flammulina velutipes and Pleurotus eryngii was cultivated as industrial activity (Fig 13). In the last few years, however, industrial level production is increasing and there is greater focus on quality (CEFA).

In addition to production of Shiitake (Table 1), in last few years production of Pleurotus eryngii increased from 967 million kg in 2016 to 2135 million kg in 2020; that of Ganoderma lucidum increased form 124 million kg to 190 million kg; Cordyceps militaris increased from 17 million kg to 83 million kg and that of Morchella spp from 6 million kg to 137 million kg in the corresponding period, i.e. from 2016 to 2020.

Mushroom production in Japan:

Japan is the second largest mushroom producer. In the 21st century mushroom production in Japan increased up to 2011 and thereafter seems to have stabilized around 460 million kg (Fig 14).

Species-wise contribution of major species in Japan is as in Table 2. Lentinula edodes, Flammulina velutipes, Hypsizygus ulnarius, Grifola frondosa, Pholiota nameko, and Pleurotus eryngii are the major contributors and these six species account for 98% of the total mushroom production of Japan (Table 2, Fig 15).

At one stage shiitake was the the main mushroom under cultivation in Japan and Japan was the prime contributor of shiitake. With time cultivation of other species started and now China is major contributor of shiitake and in Japan shiitake is at number three (Fig 16).

Mushroom production in USA:

USA is the third largest mushroom producer. There was continuous increase in mushroom production in the last century. Production stagnated in beginning of 21st century and has started declining in last few years.

Species-wise contribution of major species in Japan is as in Table 2. Lentinula edodes, Flammulina velutipes, Hypsizygus ulnarius, Grifola frondosa, Pholiota nameko, and Pleurotus eryngii are the major contributors and these six species account for 98% of the total mushroom production of Japan (Table 2, Fig 15).

Major focus in USA is on button mushroom (Table 3) and share of other mushrooms was only 3 percent. There is increasing trend in the consumption of fresh mushrooms. In 2022-23 out of 293 million kg, 84.5% was sold as fresh and 15.5 % was sold for processing. This in fact was more than earlier years as in 2017-18 only 8.8% of the produce was sold for processing. Earlier white form of button was more popular. In last few years there is continuous increase in brown varieties of button mushrooms that now account for 1/3rd of total button production in USA (Fig 18).

Changing Trends towards brown button (Crimni and Portabella) and exotics is evident from the current sales. For the four-week period that ended July 16, 2023, the US sales volume of White mushrooms amounted to 11.5 million pounds (60%), Brown mushroom category made up 7.4 million pounds(38%), Exotics category 0.4 million pounds (growing rapidly)(2%) (Mkreiner, 2023). In Netherlands and possibly in other parts of Europe demand for brown varieties and mushrooms and ‘exotics’ is on increase in recent years.

Mushroom production in Canada:

In Canada there is continuous rise in the mushroom production (Fig 19). Ontario and British Columbia are major mushroom producing centres, and like USA, focus is on button mushroom and over 90 percent is sold as fresh.

Mushroom production in EU:

European Union in 2021 produced 1.32 Million Tonne mushrooms and Poland and The Netherlands produced half of this. About 2/3rd of the production is destined for the fresh market. Overall production has stabilised, however, there are changes in contribution of different countries (Table 5).

Poland is the largest producer of button mushrooms in Europe (Table 5) and one of the leaders in the world (4th largest producer); the country sells over half of the European Union’s export. Germany followed by England are largest importers of Poland mushrooms. Embargos and wars affect mushroom production and export. Poland has possibly lost large amount of mushroom pickers due to war in Ukraine.

In Europe, like USA, button mushroom accounts for 96% of mushroom production. Countries like Spain, Italy, Germany, Poland, France, Greece were main contributors of exotic mushrooms.

 

Mushroom production in Russia:

Till last decade Russia was dependent on imports of mushrooms or wild collections. Embargo and political situations have resulted in rapid growth in mushroom production in last decade in Russian Fed. Until 2015 mushroom cultivation in the country was poorly developed, mainly due to the low-cost imports. Embargo on imports by EU has led to greater govt. support to enhance mushroom production (95% button). In fact there has been 26 times increase in production in a decade starting with 4200 tonne in 2011 to 1,10977 in 2021 (Fig 20).

Mushroom production in Australia:

Production is stabilizing or decreasing in America and USA. This is also true for other developed countries. For example, the production in Australia seems to be stabilizing at 70 thousand tonnes (Fig 21). However, there too, there is mismatch in the official data of ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) and Hort Innovation and production reported by hort innovation is about 40 percent more than that of ABS (Singh et al., 2020).

Mushroom production in South Korea, Bangladesh:

There are many countries whose production is either improperly presented in FAOStat or is not mentioned at all. For example the production of Republic of Korea reported by Yoo et al. 2016 (Per. Commn. Won Sik Kong for data from 2016- 19) is 178 thousand tonne for 2019 and FAOStat data is only 13 percent of the actual production (Table 6). Bangladesh reported production of 40 million kg in 2019 (with focus on oyster mushroom (Ferdousi et al., 2019), but its name does not appear in FAOStat. Same is true of Nepal and number of other Asian and African countries.

Mushroom production in India:

Mushroom production scenario in India has followed the global trends, that is slow start in 20th century with rapid increase in 21st century reaching value of 315 thousand kg in 2022 (Fig 22). The focus was on button alone in the early years and there was diversification in this century as a result of which button accounts for 70%, Oyster 17%, paddy straw mushroom 9%, milky mushroom 3%, and others 1% (Bijla & Sharma, 2023).

Prospects of Mushroom in India

Mushroom is a new crop and its cultivation in our country started only in the 70s in the last century. Initially it was limited to the hilly regions and focus was on button mushroom. As mentioned earlier, with passage of time cultivation of other mushrooms was also introduced and now we can see cultivation of paddy straw mushroom in Odisha, milky mushroom in Southern parts of India and oyster mushroom in Eastern region and many other states. Some farmers have also started cultivation of shiitake, king oyster, Hericium, Cordyceps militaris, Ganoderma, etc and the present mushroom production of our country is about 0.3 million tonnes.

At present, as per FAOStat, India is the 6th largest mushroom producer in the world. But a lot more work needs to be done as our production accounts for only 0.5 % of the total world production that will be touching 50 million tonne in next few years. Hence there is a lot of work to be done by researchers, extension agencies, private sector, growers and other stakeholders. One small step in this direction was the India Mushroom Summit-2023 held in New Delhi where we assembled to interact, share our achievements and chalk out the programmes and policies for coming days based on input from growers, scientists, industry and policy makers.

Primary resource of development of any crop is its biodiversity. The Deccan Plateau and North Eastern region and Himalayas are rich in mushroom diversity. There have been numerous efforts in collection and study of this diversity in different parts of the country. However, the efforts required for proper and uniform identification and conservation of mushrooms are inadequate. Few years back I proposed to compile information on mushroom diversity in the form of Mushroom Wealth of India. We realize that with increasing urbanization, deforestation, mushroom collection from forest, rapid loss of ITK about mushrooms, climate change and various other factors, we are already late in understanding and conserving mushroom diversity. There is a need to initiate a collaborative programme and collect mushroom diversity in mission mode.

Climate change is an important topic and invariably role of mushrooms or fungi in climate change and other environmental crisis issues is seldom discussed. There cannot be life on this planet without fungi. They degrade organic matter, particularly lignin, that provides nutrients to the plants and without this the nutrient cycle on the planet will come to a naught. The interrelationships of plants and fungi developed millions years ago. Over 90 percent of the plants on earth have internal or external fungal associations and may not be able to survive or prosper in the absence of fungi or mushrooms associated with it. Thus fungi are important for carbon sequestration. In addition to helping the trees to grow faster and sequester more carbon, lot of carbon gets sequestered in the form of fungal hyphae in the soil. Rapid decline in forests is affecting the fungal wealth. The fungal diversity in any region in fact determines the plant biodiversity, ecosystem variability and productivity. Conservation of fungal wealth is thus most important for protection of our climate and combat climate change parameters.

Our country has set the target of net zero carbon dioxide by 2070, that is, a state in which a country’s total emissions are offset by absorptions of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Hence, it is important to understand the role of fungi in nature in carbon sequestration and quantify it. Mycelium can break down harmful pollutants, hydrocarbons and chemicals and also degrade plastic and crude oil, and absorb radioactive contaminants and heavy metals. Mushrooms and their many complex parts may hold some of the solutions to the world’s most intractable environmental problems.

Genetic improvement in Fungi is a specific topic and breeding methodology for each mushroom may be different depending on its reproductive biology. Hence, it is imperative that we should make efforts to understand reproductive biology, particularly of indigenous edible and economically important mushrooms that are collected and consumed by local inhabitants. It is also important to screen the collected germplasm for desirable traits or genes and use these in breeding programmes.

We have seed act and variety protection rules for crops. For mushrooms this is still a grey area as we do not have fixed spawn standards and variety release procedure. We all know that mushrooms are neither plants nor animals and fungi are a separate group. We have methods for release of bacterial strains and also crop varieties but there is no set procedure for release of cultivated fungi. In some states these are being released as varieties just like crop varieties whereas at other places these are released as technology. There is a need for development of spawn certification standards for variety release and notifications by CVRC and the work may include molecular markers for identifying varieties as there are limited morphological markers available in Mushrooms.

One of the options for doing so is to grow mushrooms. As described above, China is a major producer of mushrooms and accounts for over 90% of the world’s mushroom production. There over 60 different types of mushroom are under cultivation. At many places people consider only button mushroom as mushroom. At present only 4-5 mushrooms are under cultivation in our country. There is a need to diversify and promote different types of mushrooms depending upon climatic conditions and consumption preferences. In our country as mentioned above, button mushroom still accounts for about 70 % of the total mushroom production. To promote other mushrooms we need to educate masses about their health benefits and also popularize cultivation methods.

Production of substrate, that is base material on which a mushroom grows, is an important step in mushroom cultivation. Technology for substrate production for each species is different. This is also perhaps the most difficult step in the cultivation of any mushroom and the success depends on the production of the right substrate. In the Netherlands which is a global leader in button mushroom production technology, there are only 2-3 companies that produce compost and supply to all growers all over Europe and beyond. In India the seasonal growers of button mushrooms are still using the old long method of composting, a method that has been discarded all over the world many decades ago. Commercial growers make their own compost using short method and struggle to get the right compost. Phase III composting and commercial production of compost for sale is still lacking in our country. There is a need to promote mechanization and automation and set up projects for commercial production of quality compost and quality spawn.

There are also number of IT-based solutions for automation and remote monitoring that need to be promoted for mushroom cultivation.

Production of substrate for other mushrooms like shiitake, king oyster, Hericium and other wood fungi requires facilities for mass autoclaving and inoculation under sterile conditions before laminar flow. It is not possible for small growers to establish such a setup. And this is one stumbling block in popularizing other mushrooms. If we can do mass production of ready to fruit bags, that is, autoclave and inoculate bags, and supply these to growers, it will be much easier for small growers to grow all types of mushrooms. We need the right policies for promoting mass production of substrate for helping the small growers. Present schemes of subsidy do not meet these criteria and need to be modified.

We also need Good Agricultural Practices commonly called GAP Standards. Guiding principle of GAP is that it is necessary to ensure the right of consumers to hygienic, nutritious, and affordable food. and it is also essential to safeguard the health, hygiene, and welfare of growers and farm workers. With international trade in food booming, consumers are increasingly concerned about food safety, how food is produced, and how it is handled within the supply chain. New pressures from consumers, retailers, and government will place additional demands on mushroom growers. They may have to use environment friendly production methods, may have to reduce the use of agrochemicals, and also safeguard the welfare of workers.

FAO and many countries have developed GAP standards. Few countries like USA have developed commodity specific standards that include mushrooms. There the Mushroom Good Agricultural Practices (MGAP) program provides a set of standards and procedures that mushroom growers can use to enhance and document safe mushroom growing practices.

We do have printed general documents. There is a need for specific guidelines for different groups of products. If we won’t make these documents, some policy maker sitting somewhere is going to copy and impose. There is a need for Approach Papers or Policy Research Papers on Mushroom GAP.

One of the common issue faced by growers is the diseases during cultivation of mushrooms. In mushrooms the dictum of prevention is better than cure is the guiding principle of disease management as after the occurrence of disease it is difficult to manage it. Even when we do it, it is to ensure a better next crop. Further, time available for checking spread of disease is very limited. Hence there is a need for an online and dynamic pest and disease diagnostics expert system. There is also a need for development of disease forecasting systems/diagnostic, kits Immunodiagnostic kits and PCR based primers for different diseases.

No policy can succeed without good science and there cannot be good science without proper data. Data available on production of different mushrooms needs streamlining in our country by producing better databases of all growers and developing proforma for the collection of such data. Help from research organizations and supply of production data by growers may be a give and take policy. There is a serious lack of coordination between researchers and policy makers in our country. As researchers we can assess ourselves by asking how many policy papers have been contributed by us. There is a need for better films and interactive websites in regional languages for better spread of cultivation technology and awareness generation among growers.

Medicinal mushrooms is another class of mushrooms on which only limited work has been done in our country.

Further, mushrooms are being used to produce leather substitutes, biodegradable packaging materials, meat substitutes for vegans, vegetarian source of vit D and B12 and other novel compounds of nutraceutical or medicinal value. In fact studies show that there is a tremendous increase in vit D content in mushrooms when exposed to UV light for 15 minutes and one serving of such mushrooms is sufficient to meet our daily need of Vit D. In many countries such mushrooms are on sale. We need to develop commercial scale models for marketing such mushrooms. Like other foods, we also need to develop food safety standards for mushrooms.

Marketing in any crop is an important issue and more so in mushrooms due to its perishable nature. We need to conduct digital marketing related studies including online booking and sale, and supply chain management studies. One of the options can be to provide barcode labels to each grower, collect mushroom packets at door step and transfer the money to grower as soon as the mushroom is sold based on the information available in bar or QR code. Bar coding based collective collection and sale can be one of the models for BPOs.

We need to restructure our training programmes and lectures may include: How to water and how much water; Standard designs for button, oyster, shiitake cultivation; Mechanization and automation; Lab analysis of materials – N, ammonia, pH, moisture content etc; Calibration of thermometers and other equipments, maintenance of equipments, SOPs, Check lists, uniform terminology and so on.

There is need for greater attention and planned programme on species-wise mushroom production data, particularly in Asian and African region. Greater coordination among policy makers, scientists, growers and markets is needed to promote other mushrooms. We also need standard designs, better training facilities in different parts of the country and pilot projects which growers can copy.

Promotion of mushroom consumption, not only button, but all other mushrooms will be a critical step in promoting mushroom production and consumption.

References

1. Bijla Shweta and V.P. Sharma. 2023. Status of mushroom production: Global and national scenario. (2023). Mushroom Research, 32(2):91- 98. https://epubs.icar.org.in/index.php/MR/article/view/146647 2.CEFA.2022. http://bigdata.cefa.org.cn/output.html. 3.FAOSTAT.2023. http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/TM

4. Ferdousi Jannatul, Zabid Al Riyadh, Md. Iqbal Hossain, Satya Ranjan Saha and Mohammad Zakaria. 2019. Mushroom Production Benefits, Status,Challenges and Opportunities in Bangladesh: A Review.Annual Research & Review in Biology. 34(6):1-13

5.MAFF.Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, https://www.maff.go.jp/j/tokei/kouhyou/tokuyo_rinsan/index.html. 6.mkreiner@organicmushrooms.com https://www.freshplaza.com/europe/article/9549185/new- mushroom-concepts-are-taking- off/

7.Sharma, V.P., S. Kamal. and M. Singh. 2021.Indian Mushroom Industry: History and Status. In ‘International Society of Mushroom Science (ISMS)e-Congress’, 14-17 September 2021.
8.Singh, M., S, Kamal. and V.P. Sharma. 2020. Status and trends in world mushroom production-III: World Production of Different Mushroom Species in 21st Century.Mushroom Research 29(2): 75-110. 9.Singh, M., S. Kamal.and V.P. Sharma.2017. Status and trends in world mushroom production-I. Mushroom Research26(1): 1-20.

10. Singh, M., S. Kamal. and V.P. Sharma. 2018. Status and trends in world mushroom production-II – mushroom production in Japanand China. Mushroom Research 27(1): 1-25.
11. Statistics Canada. 2023. Table 32-10-0356-01 Area, production and sales of mushrooms, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3210035601. 12.USDA. https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/r781wg03d? locale=en.

13. Yoo Young Bok, Min Ji Oh, Youn Lee Oh, Pyung G S, Kab Yeul Jang, and Won Sik Kong. 2016. Development trend of the mushroom industry. J. Mushrooms. 14(4):142-154; http://dx.doi.org/10.14480/JM.2016.14.4.142

(Paper based on presentation made during India MushroomSummit held in DelhiUniversity, New Delhi 20-22 Nov. 2023)

Dr. Manjit Singh 

President, Mushroom Society of India Vice President, World Society of Mushroom Biology and Mushroom Products

Ex-Director, ICAR – Directorate of Mushroom Research, Solan (India)