According to casing soil supplier Havens, the costs for a container in April could rise from €400 (normal) to €2000 per container. Aside from manifestations of ‘new normal’ restrictions like social distancing and so on, casing soil producers, such as Havens and BVB, were hardly affected by lower production or delivery problems. For other chain suppliers, the crisis did not have much operational impact either in April/May, apart from the fact that more people were wor- king from home. A major Dutch company in con- struction, with a large share of international projects, indicated that international clients were taking a more wait-and-see attitude. Transport costs have risen considerably and there are delays concerning the transport of parts. The delivery of certain products has ground to a halt, or been delayed, such as sandwich panels from France or motors. On top of this, the company is unable to send its service engineers to clients around the world. The main focus of concern was long term prospects, due to the fear of market destabilisation, logistic problems and declining investment, or lower consumption of mushrooms. “It can't last much longer.”


Labour


Just as (the lack of) labour proved to be the main issue for mushroom cultivation in China, the same picture repeated itself later on in Europe. At a large German mushroom farm, the Polish pickers didn't return to Germany. Other Polish pickers ended up stranded in the Netherlands and could therefore stay on to work for longer. In Italy, the lack of pickers was more acute, and here, as in Spain, the general situation relating to the corona outbreak was more severe than in northern production countries. In these coun- tries, increasing volumes of mushrooms were destroyed/ given away in March. The same response was also seen in Brazil a little later.


Argentina - Marcos Calderon, Hongos del Pilar - 4 April The first Corona patient in Argentina was repor- ted on 3 March. “Until now there are 36 deaths (353 by May 15). The public rules are social, pre- ventive and compulsory isolation. And honestly we think that the rules were efficient, and they slowed down the contagion curve. But for the economy, it is terrible, really terrible”, says Marcos Calderon. “Hongos del Pilar made a big investment last year in a new mushroom farm. We make our own compost and casing soil, pro- duce mushrooms, and have our own packing and distribution. The outbreak has a big impact on the mushroom industry in Argentina, because the total gastronomic business has come to a halt now, and this means that the sales volume is going down to 50%, because there are only a few


Picking with mask on at La fungaia die Giampaulo Prosdocimi in Campsampiero, Italy.


other customers. Obviously, the prices go down as well, because the offer is really bigger than the demand. We estimate that we need 6 months to break even and recoup costs, and more than a year to recover the money lost. At the farm we started to reschedule the production. The first action was to delay casing and totally stop prepa- ring compost for a few weeks. Now we are begin- ning to prepare 50% of the normal compost amount. We had to change the contract for the workers by reducing 50% of the hours. 50% lesser work makes it easier to organise the social dis- tance between pickers/workers inside the rooms. And most of the administration staff works from home. We think that for the next 2-3 months, our production will stay at 50%. The idea is to start slowly then, to increase the production when the market will grow again.”


Brazil – Jos Buth, 7 April In Brazil, the consequences of Corona have hit dramatically hard in the mushroom industry, according to Dutch consultant Jos Buth, based in Chile. The biggest Brasilian compost producer has had to stop production by 100%, because most of their customers had cancelled orders. The exotics production and sales came to a total halt as well.


Iran - Ali Irani, Sadaf Group - 4 April


Iran was hit hard by the outbreak. Official statis- tics state that the first case was on February 19th, but unofficial statistics put that date 60 days ear- lier. The official statistics give a figure of 3500 people deceased, unofficial statistics give a dou- ble number. From 15 March all unnecessary ser- vice jobs closed. Government offices work with half of the staff. Sadaf is a group of farms, produ- cing and incubating compost, producing mushrooms, canning, and making casing soil and spawn as well. “Currently, in Iran there is only


‘Our company is a small


community, for which we have a social


responsibility’


Ò MUSHROOM BUSINESS 9


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