Ifull's project mushrooms

Updated: 2015-11-23
By Li Yang And Xue Chao Hua In Shandan, Gansu ( China Daily )

A Shandan company rolls out organic produce for the supermarket shelves of East China cities

Chen Feng is general manager of Ifull Agriculture and is proud of his organic mushrooms. So proud, in fact, that he hopes the Ifull brand will become a household name in homes across East China and in Central Asian countries.

Based in Shandan along the Hexi Corridor of Gansu province, the company was set up in 2012 and plans to produce more than 60,000 tons of mushrooms annually in the next 10 years with sales worth 1 billion yuan ($157.4 million).

"Mushrooms tend to be very healthy for you," Chen said. "As consumers in China and neighboring countries in Central Asia are increasingly picky about their food, I'm confident we will be popular."

It is still too early to say if he is right as the largest organic mushroom grower in the region only started selling its produce this year and has yet to disclose detailed financial figures such as sales revenue.

But the signs are looking good since Ifull Agriculture was conceived with the help of 400 million yuan of funding.

The factory complex covers an area of about 35 hectares, roughly the size of 50 soccer fields and consists of 12 workshops.

They are crucial in the chain of mushroom production and processing, which starts with natural compost, wild mushroom spawn from the Qilian mountain range and a world-class fermentation station from the Netherlands.

The first stage involves cultivating mushroom "sticks", which resemble rolled-up pieces of A3 paper containing organic fertilizer, in nurseries. They are then transported to 100,000 contracted farmers, who nurture the mushrooms in greenhouses.

Once picked, the fleshy delicacies are packaged and transported by Ifull to retailers and suppliers.

"There are plenty of crop stalks and cattle manure in the grasslands that provide us with the right kind of natural fertilizers," Chen said. "And the various kinds of wild mushrooms in the Qilian mountains range give us valuable raw spawn to cultivate our produce."

The setting could not be more striking. Dizzy snow-capped peaks and rolling hills are a major feature of the landscape. Against this picture postcard background, Chen's mushroom vision took shape.

"Shandan has pollution-free air and soil. The snow water from the Qilian mountains runs through the valleys and there are large areas of virgin land accessible via high-speed road and rail," he said. "That's why I came here all the way from my hometown in Fujian province."

The factory complex took two years to complete and work was finally finished on the spawn workshop, a fermentation station and 20 greenhouses earlier this year.

About 500,000 bottles of mushroom spawn will be produced annually by 2020 along with 2.5 million compost "sticks" with a value of 12.5 million yuan.

The fermentation station is equipped with a monitoring system made in the Netherlands, which accurately adjusts the temperature, moisture and oxygen to produce 30,000 tons of compost annually.

"The quality of the compost is crucial for the mushrooms," Feng Jianwei, chief production director at Ifull Agriculture, said.

"That is why we use the world's most advanced technology at the very beginning of our industrial chain.

"Unlike conventional agriculture, cultivating mushrooms in greenhouses is not restricted by the weather," Feng added. "Farmers can have more than one harvest season in a year, depending on which kind of mushrooms they plant."

According to the county government's agricultural office, mushroom farming provides an annual income of between 20,000 to 30,000 yuan for farmers.

Additionally, there is a secondary market for the residue from mushroom production.

"The residue from 60,000 tons of mushroom can be transformed into 50,000 tons of organic fodder for cows and sheep, or 50,000 tons of organic fertilizer," Zhang Kuimin, agricultural office director for Shandan's county government, said.

Contact the writers at liyang@chinadaily.com.cn

A worker picks mushrooms at an Ifull Agriculture workshop in Shandan, Gansu province. The company now runs 12 workshops which are engaged in the production and processing of mushrooms for domestic and overseas markets. Provided To China Daily