Cultivating edible fungi can be a successful business in Argentina today: fungi producers and specialists agree that it is a highly profitable activity because it doesn't require a disproportionate investment to start, at least on a small scale scheme, and provided that producers have some capital. Producers need a 20m by 20 meters shed and enough money to buy raw materials, machinery, and inputs to start a production that can yield up to 2.5 tons of oyster mushrooms per year, which are being traded at 100 pesos per kilo and can be grown on tree trunks and substrates composed of a wide range of waste. Coffee pulp, sawdust, sugar cane bagasse, rice husk, corncob, beer wort, textile waste, and even straw bedding for horses are all favorable substrates for growing mushrooms.
Even though the best known fungi in Argentina are the mushroom and the dry pine mushrooms, which are used in stews and sauces, the oyster mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms are slowly gaining popularity, not only for the advancement of gourmet food in the country, but also because of the dissemination of their nutritional and medical properties. These fungi have valuable proteins (with all the essential amino acids), minerals (potassium, phosphorus and calcium), and vitamins (B1, B12 and C). They also have beta-glucans, a substance used in therapies against various cancers that helps the immune system fight immunosuppressive or autoimmune conditions.
Oyster mushrooms and shiitakes are mainly grown on small-scale family enterprises or cooperatives in Buenos Aires, San Luis, Formosa, Neuquen, Rio Negro, Mendoza, Entre Rios, and Cordoba - unlike the mushrooms that requires a greater investment and a more sophisticated sterilization system that are monopolized by large companies.
Increasing oyster and shiitake mushroom crops would substantially contribute to the creation of jobs and to the recovery of the agricultural sector's polluting waste. Currently, the Ministry of Agricultural Industry doesn't have any programs to promote this crop at the national level and there are only a few programs to develop this kind of business in rural communities under the guidance of Inta.
Source: Ellitoral.com