Mushroom Sector on the Verge of Transformation

Every single mushroom grown in Ireland today is hand-picked. Hands are becoming increasingly hard to come by, causing mushroom producers to seriously consider automation. The first tentative steps are already being taken, and the Irish sector seems poised for radical transformation.

According to Donal Gernon, mushroom advisor at Teagasc, within the next five years automated or semi-automated systems will replace or complement human labour in mushroom picking.

Donal was one of the organisers of the seminar at Teagasc Ashtown, where growers were able to see systems from leading mushroom automation companies.

Irish, Belgian and Dutch companies demonstrated how their systems can meet growers’ needs.

“Some of the semi-automatic systems that were shown at the seminar are already on farms in Europe and Canada, so we’re already familiar with a lot of them,” Donal admitted. “What we’re not familiar with is the robotics – that’s groundbreaking technology. But I foresee that we’ll probably see some robotics trials in Ireland in the next 12 to 18 months, which is really positive and exciting.”

Mushroom pickers may not share this “positive and exciting” view if faced with redundancy. Celt asked Donal about the human cost of switching to automation.

Read the full article here.