News

Sullivan County considers the mushroom business

By GLYNIS HART
[email protected]
UNITY — The old root cellar was once used to store the apple harvest of the Sullivan County Farm. In 1931, when it was built, there was no SNAP, WIC, Food Stamps, Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare. When people fell on hard times and their families couldn’t take care of them, they went to the county farm, where they worked in the gardens, orchard, dairy and sheep farm to produce their own food and clothing. 

Times changed, and the old root cellar tucked into the hillside behind the nursing home, has sat empty for decades. Before the county locked them out, last year cattle grazing on land leased from the county pushed in through the old wooden doors to get out of the weather. 

“We should either do something with the building, or take the roof off and let it go,” said Lionel Chute, director of natural resources for Sullivan County. At the Sullivan County Board of Commissioners meeting on Monday, Chute presented the results of a feasibility study for putting the root cellar back to work. The $10,000 cost of the study was split between the county and the Capital Regional Development Council.

The study looked at whether the root cellar could be a viable home for a cheesemaking enterprise or mushroom growing. The 1,500 square foot building faces south. It is unheated and has no electric service or plumbing. The study’s authors consulted with cheese producers and mushroom growers in the Northeast. 

“As a cheese aging facility, it’s too small,” said Chute. “They concluded for the same cost to renovate the building, you could build a great one.” Cheesemakers are also looking for more space, he added. 

“But the mushroom idea was better. The mushroom market is in a real growth phase,” said Chute. 

The study found that with a capital investment around $30,000 for metal shelves and a custom built walk-in cooler, humidifiers and packing tables, the facility could grow around 216 pounds of mushrooms, probably oyster mushrooms, per week. Oyster mushrooms sell for between $6 and $16 per pound. 

Such a facility could support inmate work/educational opportunities. “Growing mushrooms ins a manually intensive labor enterprise. One can yeild between 1.46 to 3.36 pounds of finished mushrooms per labor hour,” according to the study (page 12). “At the lower productivity range, the enterprise would not be able to afford more than New Hampshire’s minimum wage. At the higher productivity range, the enterprise could afford to pay higher wages as it would require fewer labor hours to yield the same proposed output.”  

Thus, the facility could support three workers at $7.25 an hour and one or two workers at $16 an hour, producing around 11,000 pounds of mushrooms a year. 

“It appears to me a very thorough analysis,” said Chute. “It does assume paying no rent to the county.” 

Commissioner Ben Nelson said if that’s the only way the business would be sustainable, he wouldn’t support it. 

County Manager Derek Ferland said what grants could be tapped to support the enterprise would be important. “When you do something that produces full time employment, you can get grants.” 

Chute envisioned using the facility for classes, as the department’s natural resource classes have been growing in popularity. By removing the roof and adding another floor upstairs, it could become an agriforestry center with the mushroom business downstairs. 

“There’s so many things we could be doing in the forest as forest,” said Chute. 

“What we need is more information,” said Ferland. He said the county can search grant opportunities and see how they match up with a mushroom-growing facility, then report back to the board of commissioners. 

“Find out what it’s going to cost to fix it,” said Nelson. “Using taxpayer money to fix it and then dumping it on someone like, ‘There you go, you win,’ doesn’t sit well with me.”

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