This on-going podcast series explores exciting and creative green projects happening across the world. It is put together by Det Voksende Værksted - a green art space based in Århus, Denmark run by artists and plant-enthusiasts Maja Gramstrup Andersen and Ditte Elly Goard.
In this episode we are interviewing Myco Manchester: a mushroom growing co-op based in Manchester, UK, specialising in oyster mushrooms and focussing on building a more just and ecogocially stable food system.

DICTIONARY: 
Environmental Science: the academic field of study that integrates physical, biological and information sciences to the study of the environment and the solution of environmental problems. (Dansk: Miljøvidenskab)

Green New Deal: a proposal from the USA that aims to address climate change and economic inequality through transferring to clean and renewable energy and creating stable living-wage jobs for anyone that needs one. 

Mutual aid: a voluntary exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit – people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions. 

Archaer: single-celled microorganisms with structure simliar to bacteria. They form the third domain of life. 

Waste streams: flows of specific waste through recycling or disposal. They can be divided into three categories: sewage waste, trade waste and hazardous liquid waste.

Anti-specieism: intolerance or discrimination on the basis of species, especially as manifested by cruelty to or explotation of animals by humans 

Substrate (in relation to mushroom production): a bulk material, such as straw or woodchip, that the mycelium can use for energy and nutrition. A good substrate is required in order for the mushroom to grow and fruit.

Grain spawn: the mushroom version of plant seeds!

Mycelium: the vegetative part of a fungus, made up of branching, thread-like hyphae. 

Heirloom seeds: old, organic varieties of seeds such as purple carrots. They vary significantly in terms of the quality they have been selected for, however they were often the result of thousands of years of cultivation, and have a rich genetic value.  

Agar plate: this is what a normal petri dish is made of. Agar is a gel-like substance made from agar agar and, usually, some kind of glucose or carbohydrate e.g. dextrose. This is where you grow fungi from a basic cell e.g. cloning from tissue or growing from spores.

Commodification: the process of treating something as a mere commodity, to be produced, bought and sold. (Dansk: vareliggørelsen) 

Genetic commons: a broad, multi-faceted response to the technological, economic, political and ethical developments of the neoliberal era we live in, which seeks to critique and resits the commodification and commercialisation of nature. 

Seed Sovereignity: the right of farmers to save, use, exchange and sell their own seeds. (Food Sovereignity to the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems). 

Peri-urban: the outskirts of a suburban area.

Ecocide: the destruction of the natural environment by deliberate or negligent human action.

Det Voksende Værksted Podcast: Myco Manchester

Det Voksende Værksted