Audience during the inauguration, with among others, Dr Kurade, Roland van Doremaele, Manjit Singh, and Daniel Dajewski.
Speakers from ltr: Anurag Saxena, Andrzej Bielicz (Agro Projects), Ron Hegger (DMP), Sangam Kurade, Snehal Mane, Atul Saxena.
first address was delivered by Magda Verfaille of Mycelia in Belgium. She talked about the various aspects of lab setup for spawn production and GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices). She covered various sectors and parts of spawn production including the premises, the pro- ducts, the people, the process and procedure. She provided valuable insight into many steps that can (and have to) be taken to improve in Indian spawn producing, to ensure proper and increased yield. According to Verfaillie, there are some 400 spawn producers active in India, that use often European spawn as inoculum and the end product is often of dubious quality (more on this in next issue). The next speaker was Anurag Saxena, who talked about the challenges in spawn production and the solutions we can adopt. Problems faced by producers include a difficulty in identifying contaminants when they receive spawn. Saxena suggested that a solution for this can be to edu- cate the growers more about the spawn and also encode a system of displaying barcodes on spawn bags which include information such as batch no. and production date, which can make it easier to decide whether the spawn in the bag is contaminated or fresh. Dr. Mustafa Soylu (Atatürk Horticultural Central Research Institute), lectured on mushroom cultivation in Turkey. Agaricus bisporus is the major species of mushrooms grown, followed by oyster mushroom and shiitake.
AI panel The next panel was on ‘AI Enabled Mushroom Farming’, chaired by Prof. Sunil K. Srivastava, who delivered a talk on the applications of AI in healthcare and mushroom technologies and how, during the COVID pandemic, AI was used for medicinal research and diagnosis. Vineet Saxena of Setukriti Technologies, menti- oned that the use of AI in mushroom cultivation can help combat many issues such as pests and diseases and short shelf life. He introduced MushAI, developed in collaboration with Milky-
way. This tool can help farmers in enhancing their production and increasing their efficiency by providing monitoring services, automated analysis, and AI driven disease detection. Bart Aerts of Fancom showed how AI can help in data collection and analysis to improve production. The final talk of the panel was delivered by Ayush Nemani, Naayom, India, who mentioned the problems faced in perishability and damage and suggested the integration of AI in predicting spoilage patterns and ranges of perishability of spawn and mushrooms. Data contribution from farmers can help with the development of this technology.
Global perspectives In the afternoon the panel on Global Industry Perspective was hosted which included talks and presentations from various entrepreneurs. The first presentation was given by Andrzej Bielicz, Agro Projects, Poland. He covered the various requirements of mushroom cultivation and the challenges faced, the Polish mushroom industry and an overview of his company and its role. Anurag Saxena talked about the work being done by his company Milkyway not just in the field of mushroom cultivation but also in the process of broadening the understanding of people towards mushroom cultivation, mentioning his desire to organize more summits like this one. Ron Hegger (DMP) gave an overview of the various computer systems that his company produces, highlighting their development throughout the years and the way they can help farmers. Next, Snehal Mane (Manegrow - see MB122) talked about her family’s experience with growing mushrooms. She mentioned their newest venture, Samspire, a mushroom based cafe. Atul Saxena (Growdiesel) gave his presentation on the use of the by-products of cultivation for the production of biogas. He mentioned the
Driving force behind the conference, Anurag Saxena with a friend on the trade floor.
MUSHROOM BUSINESS 33
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