Guided by Mushrooms, a mushroom farm in Dayton, was forced to find new outlets for its products after the federal government terminated the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, or LFPA.
That program had paid Ohio farmers to distribute their food to local schools and food banks. Now, producers across the state are being forced to find other pathways for selling their products.
"I could say that that process might be coming a little bit easier for us, but probably less so for smaller farms whose market was more concentrated towards LFPA," said Michael Goldstick, owner and sales manager for Guided by Mushrooms.
Guided by Mushrooms has been operating since 2018 out of a small farm New Lebanon. The LFPA Program had paid for the farm to provide 130 pounds of mushrooms a week to Ohio food banks and schools until it ended in June.
Goldstick said while they typically do donate mushrooms to food banks on their own, they relied on LFPA payments to make expanded donations sustainable. Those donations included the Foodbank, Inc., which serves Montgomery, Preble and Greene counties.
"The Foodbank would act as a food hub, an aggregator where they would distribute to churches and schools impoverished areas," said Goldstick. "They would also do pop-up mobile giveaways."
The nonprofit Hall Hunger Initiative responded to federal funding cuts by providing the farm with a $2,500 microgrant from July 1 to August 5.
This allowed the group to provide 35 pounds of mushrooms a week to the House of Bread in Dayton during that time period — amounting to 10,000 hot lunches including mushrooms.
"We think that community involvement is huge," said Goldstick. "It's something we've been doing since we've been in business and Hall Hunger's mission aligns completely with ours."
In addition to funding mushroom donations from Guided by Mushrooms, the Initiative provided microgrants to Seven Seed Sowers, Efinity Harvest, Greater Edgemont Community Coalition and Solar Garden, Irby Old School Farm, Goodwill/Easter Seals Miami Valley and Mission of Mary.
"We know there are amazing individuals and groups doing great work around local food, we want to be there to support them," said Mark Willis, community engagement director for the Hall Hunger Initiative, in a written statement.
Goldstick said this grant bridged them through a difficult time while they continue to search for new markets for the 800 to 900 pounds of fresh mushrooms produced each week.
"We have not made up all the surplus yet, but I feel like we are getting rather close," he said.
Guided by Mushrooms' products are currently sold in stores across the state, including Dorothy Lane Market, Jungle Jim's, Gem City Market, Tom's Market, Littleton's Market, Lucky's Market and the Giant Eagle Market District.
"We're also ramping specialty inventory of packaged products," Goldstick said. "Like mushroom coffee, lab-tested mushroom tinctures, mushroom tea, mushroom honey, mushroom powder."
While the group searches for more places to reroute their product surplus, Goldstick said they are hopeful that new federal legislation will bring similar programs back to the state — including a House bill that's sponsored by a Republican and has bipartisan support, and a Senate bill that aims to make programs like LFPA permanent.
According to Goldstick, they group is continuing to donate mushrooms to the local pantry with the help of a second, $15,000 grant from the Healing Soils Foundatio
, which "has a very similar mission to Hall Hunger, again, fight food insecurity and help with soil health," he said.
In addition to donating fresh mushrooms, the new grant supports the donation of spent blocks, which are chunks of residual material that are left over after mushrooms have been harvested. They are typically made up of sawdust, grain and mycelium.
Goldstick said these can be used to leach toxins out of soils to make them better for gardening and food production. That includes the grounds at Edgemont Solar Garden.
"Edgemont is in an area with the former GM plant and a lot of the the houses around there and a lot of the land has been contaminated by lead," he said.
"And so we are doing small, pilot micro-remediation experiments to see if we can mix the mushroom blocks in with the soil to help leach out some of those heavy metals and make the soil food safe again for growing."
