The Alamosa County Commissioners approved a special use permit for the Sand Dunes Mushroom Cooperative that will allow the farmer-owned cooperative to move forward. Nearly two years after the Colorado Mushroom Farm closed, leaving dozens of employees without any safety nets, the cooperative is one step closer to opening.
Founded by the families of eight former mushroom farm employees, the cooperative is looking to operate much differently, and on its own terms. Besides running the business as a cooperative, where each employee has a say, the farm will be growing and harvesting a broader variety of mushrooms.
On top of a series of gourmet mushrooms, the coop intends on growing mushrooms with medicinal value. Part of the special use permit discussion during the county commissioners meeting was setting this operation apart from the upcoming natural medicine initiative that involves psychedelic mushrooms.
Mushrooms with medicinal value are different from mushrooms with hallucinogenic properties. The Sand Dunes Mushroom Cooperative will not grow anything psychedelic. The argument has been made that psychedelic mushrooms have medicinal qualities, but for this particular land use “it’s not that kind of mushroom,” said Richard Hubler, Alamosa County’s land use administrator.
The semantics of what is natural medicine versus what kind of mushroom is medicinal seemingly hung the commissioners up as there was concern over what the public’s perception of the difference could be, so it is important to differentiate between the two.
The mushroom coop had originally started operations in a building east of Alamosa at the end of Guamer Lane. The Citizen previously reported on this story from that building. There were too many water restrictions at that building to accommodate the proper use and allow the cooperative to grow to its full potential.
Now, the farm will be right along Highway 160, at 175 ½ Broadway. It’s in a commercial use area of East Alamosa near Discount Liquor and Vendola Plumbing. With just a handful of employees coming and going at any given time, the traffic impact of the mushroom cooperative will be miniscule.
That’s the beauty of mushroom harvesting: it doesn’t require a lot of space.
The mushrooms will be grown in individual grow tents in climate-controlled environments. Mushrooms may not need a lot of space, but they do require the right amount of atmospheric conditions and moisture levels.
The members of the cooperative have been spending the last two years learning how to incubate the spores of high-quality gourmet mushrooms, how to grow them in commercial batches, how to maintain operations, and most of all how to govern a cooperative.
Part of the training included learning organic cultivation techniques from Sugar Moon Mushrooms and Mystic Mountain Mushrooms in Bennet and Grand Lake, Colorado.
The cooperative members couldn’t be at the meeting as they were all working their other jobs. The Colorado Mushroom Farm closed in 2022 due to bankruptcy, environmental concerns and employee safety and payment violations, leaving more than 100 workers, some of whom had worked there for three decades, with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Many of the workers had already been experiencing unpaid wages for months prior to the closing.
Many, if not all, the employees are migrants or come from the families of migrants.
Alece Montez, co-director of the AJL Foundation, and who has been working alongside the mushroom farm employees and cooperative members, said that this new location and ability to move forward gives the families upward mobility and gives upward mobility to an otherwise vulnerable demographic.
The location will work primarily as a growing and shipping center. There may be an opportunity in the future for a retail space. Cooperative assistant Bill Adler told the commissioners that for now the mushrooms will be delivered to restaurants and provided through other local food networks.