Combining fungi and trees to increase woodland cover with carbon-negative food production

What is it about?

There is an emerging field of growing edible mushrooms from fungi that grow with living trees. Known as edible ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF), their cultivation involves planting young, inoculated saplings and creating new woodland. Using data from a range of sources, we quantified the potential of the approach across all the world's forested regions and show that 858 kg of carbon could be sequestered (stored) for every kilogram of protein produced. Our nine major food production categories actually release greenhouse gases during their production, so the climate-change mitigating ability of EMF cultivation is unique. Finally, we calculated that if this approach had been combined with forestry activities of the past 10 years, we could now be producing enough food to feed 18.9million people annually and without having to cultivate more land.

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Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash

Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Globally, deforestation is still occurring rapidly and at an unsustainable pace. Demand for agricultural land is the main reason for deforestation, but here we show a way to prevent this land-use conflict. Cultivating EMF with tree planting, means that we can scale up both afforestation rates and food production, on the same parcel of land. This has huge implications from helping to mitigate climate change to improving food security and production of a carbon-negative food. Further benefits include ecosystem services, such as flood mitigation and contribution to biodiversity and conservation goals.

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