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POLAND “A car after just one harvest”
The Spychowo region, situated in the north of Poland, was home to hundreds of mushroom growers back in the early 1980s. The village sits in idyllic countryside, with lakes and tree-covered hills which shelter a wealth of wild mushrooms in autumn. However, according to Jaroslaw Piotrowicz, mushroom growing has all but died out leaving just two active farms. Pieczarkarnia w Koczku in Koczek is one of the survivors.
By John Peeters
“In 1981 my sister-in-law had one growing room in which to produce mushrooms. At the time this was one of the poorest regions of our beautiful country. There were no jobs, apart from forestry or lumber- jacking, so people had to be inventive to find some source of income. My wife’s sister thought it might be a good idea to try something with mushrooms – inspired by what she had seen other people in the surrounding area do. It certainly kept the entire fa- mily occupied! We all got involved turning the horse manure over with forks and rakes.”
15 kilos in a crate Mushroom growing was booming business as the 1970s came to a close, although it had its limitations. Piotrowicz reminisced about what it was like back then. “There were at least 100 growers here in region, but they all had just one or two growing rooms that produced one harvest in spring and another in autumn. We utilised anything we could get our hands on – old garages, pigsties, nondescript sheds, in fact any type of building we could grow mushrooms in. Private enterprise was possible, even in communist- run Poland. We sold our produce to state-owned
companies- who sold in turn to the local, domestic market, but we also sold to the former USSR, sending crates containing up to 15 kilos of mushrooms. No, quality was not all that important. If you did it well you could afford to buy a car after just one harvest of mushrooms. Not a Mercedes naturally, but for the time we made a decent living.” Apart from mushroom growing, or occasional forestry work, there were not many employment opportunities in and around Spychowo. After the collapse of communism, and greater freedom for the people in general, many were forced to migrate to regions offering work, either in other parts of Poland or abroad. “Thanks to the emergence of tourism, and the increasing number of smaller companies, there are now more jobs here”, says Piotrowicz, “but not enough people to fill them. The majority of young people have left to earn a living in Warsaw or outside Poland. The size of Polish families is shrinking, and the growing elderly population is hitting us hard. This pattern is set to become a serious issue facing Polish rural communities in general. We are finding it a real challenge attracting enough people to work on our farm. Up to now we’ve just managed, but for how
The grower with a fine flush of mushrooms.
Sprinklers above the beds provide water.
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