CORONA


Serbia has a relatively low number of deaths (224 half way May). Partial lockdown was implemen- ted by the government on 20 March. “We think the virus has come inside Serbia with the 300.000 Serbian workers that came back from Europe.” Champicomp is a phase II compost yard and the owner also has a mushroom farm and does tra- ding for several growers. The Corona had a big impact on the mushroom industry in Serbia. Normally 50-60% of all the produce goes to res- taurants/pizzerias. Because they closed, this part of the market does not take mushrooms. “At our own mushroom farm, we cook now half the quantity of the fresh mushrooms for canning. Many growers cancelled compost orders in a panic reaction; this results in a total loss of 30-40% of compost sales. To protect the people at the farm we give everybody masks and gloves and we increased frequential disinfection of the working spaces.


Israel - Zohar Alinski, Arad Mushrooms - 10 April The first Corona case in Israel occurred end of February. The government reacted by setting ground rules and slowly toughening those instructions and making them mandatory. At first, the government closed the sky to corona infected countries, starting with China and other south-Asian countries and within two weeks there were no civil flights coming in or out from Israel (save repatriation flights). Every person that came back was obliged to enter a self-qua- rantine for 14 days. An app was created that reports on every location in which an infected person was at in the week leading up to the posi- tive test. All those who were at those locations receive a text message and are obliged to go into self-quarantine as well. A severe lockdown was implemented, enforced by police and the IDF. All this seems to have paid off, with ‘only’ 265


reported Corona deaths (May 15). The mushroom market in Israel decreased about 35-50%, the growers who use to sale high % of their produc- tion to restaurants, etc., suffer the most. Some are doing direct sales to homes. Arad mushrooms is a company that produces compost, and culti- vates and sells mushrooms. Zohar Alinski: “Our sales decreases about 25%. We are producing lesser compost and fill lesser m2 in the rooms. We can sell only the best quality and we throw 2nd or 3rd quality away.”


Israel - Tommy Gruenwald, Marina Galilee Mushrooms, 8 April “Israel has taken measures on the more extreme side than most Western countries and at quite an early stage. These measures have helped to keep the spread under control and the death rate on the low side. But the downside of this policy is the extreme damage to the economy due to the fact that the unemployment rate rose from 2.4 % to 26% and is rising”, says Tommy Gruenwald from Marina. “Not only this, but there is hardly any production and the economy has to struggle with activity going down in huge numbers. The mushroom industry is under the food production category so we are allowed to work. Our office staff has been limited to 20% but direct produc- tion staff is working with no limitations. Of course, a high percentage of our customers are not on the market. This means of course a huge drop of sales. Take into consideration that Israel is not exporting mushrooms, our only sales are internal and influenced only by our own internal market. At early stages of the crisis, there was a slight compensation for the loss of this part of the market (restaurants etc.) by increased shop- ping made by the households at the supermar- kets, but this is gradually dropping now. Our production and sales are now at around 55% in average. For Passover (Easter) we foresee a drop of sales for this period. The government is consi- dering a slow and gradual release of the tight closure on the economy so we hope that will have an effect on the mushroom production and sales. As for labour, we do not struggle with labour shortage, not for production nor for picking. Our only concern is that there will be a worker who will unknowingly carry the virus into a farm and risk the others.”


Switzerland - Wauwiler Champignons, 13 April


Harvest and distribution at Arad Mushrooms, Israel. 56 MUSHROOM BUSINESS


Wauwiler Champignons in Switzerland is taking every possible measure to prevent the risk of infection with coronavirus. The 1.5 metre physi- cal distancing rule is strictly observed and employees in the risk group, for example aged over 65, are not allowed to work at the company. Another problem is that some of the pickers


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