Rising costs force mushroom farmer to cut 10 jobs

Topics:? agriculture, clarks mushrooms, farmer, farming, mushrooms

Trevor Clark. Iain Curry

A LOCAL mushroom farmer has pulled out of the industry and cut 10 jobs, as a result of flat produce prices unable to counteract the ever-increasing cost of production.

Clark's Mushrooms, at Diddillibah, had grown from just two cold rooms to 32 over 15 years, and recently was producing four tonnes of mushrooms a week.

But increasing wages, increases in superannuation contributions, weekend penalty rates, and particularly a 22.5% increase in electricity costs, has led them to make the heartbreaking decision to close the mushroom farm.

"It's pretty much a sign of the times - everything is going up and mushrooms are not," farm manager Trevor Clark said.

"It costs $20 to grow a box of mushrooms, and most of the time we're lucky to get that for a box.

"There's a few farms that are struggling but are still going, but we got to the point that we were just breaking even, and it's not worth working seven days a week, 6am to 6pm, to break even."

Mr Clark said mushrooms were a fickle crop grown in cold rooms of around 20 degrees C, which are run continually, and pending electricity price increases would add an estimated $1500 to the quarterly power bill. He added that staffing costs, including compulsory superannuation contributions and weekend penalty rates, all added to operating costs, but prices could not be increased.

"We can't turn around and say these mushrooms are more expensive because they were picked on a Sunday," Mr Clark said.

"The main thing is the government changing the rules every five minutes - they say the cost of living is going up so we'll make the employer pay more, and we can't turn around and charge more, so it's a vicious circle."

Mr Clark said the farm would switch to small crop vegetable farming, which would employ only himself and his fianc?.

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Source: http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/trevor-calls-it-quits/1944501/

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