Michael Mahoney began farming mushrooms in his Iowa City garage almost six years ago. The walls are covered top-to-bottom with blooming mushrooms in shades of orange, brown and white. A mister keeps the room perpetually damp.
His company, Rot’s Bounty Gourmet Fungi, boasts a familiar sign at local farmer’s markets. But the Iowa City market only runs from May to October. For years, Mahoney ran his business part time, until the rollout of a state pilot program aimed at connecting local producers with regional food distributors.
“I’ve been trying to do this for over a decade, and I was able to switch to farming full time,” Mahoney said. “I think the interest from this program kind of helped to give me the confidence that I could access a wide market and be able to do this full time to provide for my family.”
The program that allowed Mahoney to farm full time, as of November, is called Choose Iowa. It’s run by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.
Beyond farmer’s markets, Mahoney’s mushrooms are now available at regional food banks and restaurants in eastern Iowa.
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig says Choose Iowa started in 2020 as a grant program aimed at building out the state’s local food infrastructure. In 2023, IDALS launched its brand program, where regional producers and distributors can stamp the Choose Iowa logo on their products.
“If you can link a producer or a business with an institutional buyer, or somebody that’s going to signal that they need certain quantities or they’re even willing to contract for certain quantities, you can get hooked up with a food hub that is serving as a distributor to allow you to reach even further,” Naig said.
Food banks and schools were allocated $295,000 in matching funds to buy local foods.
Last year, the state added a pilot program to help address food insecurity. Food banks and schools were allocated $295,000 in matching funds to buy local foods from producers like Mahoney.
One of those food banks is the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program, or HACAP. It’s a member of the nonprofit Feeding America and serves eight counties in eastern Iowa.
“The main foods that we purchased — we had a lot of dairy. So, yogurt, cottage cheese, milk, butter and then also a lot of produce,” said Kim Guardado, HACAP's food reservoir director. “Seasonal things, of course, in that August, September, October range: squash, cabbage, green peppers, eggplant, mushrooms, apples, pumpkins... lots of different foods that we could locally [source] during that time frame.”
Will Iowa lawmakers choose to renew funding?
Choose Iowa members say the program has helped them build regional connections, but the pilot program was given a set amount of money and members are not sure whether it will continue.
“HACAP alone, they’ve developed, I believe, all the reasons why this should be a permanent program,” said Michelle Kenyon, the executive director of the Iowa City-based regional food hub Field to Family. The food bank, HACAP, bought products from Field to Family with its pilot program funding.
“They’ve orchestrated it really well," Kenyon added. "They’ve utilized the funding. They’ve been able to partner with the food hub and directly through producers.”
State lawmakers are still developing the budget for next year. Gov. Kim Reynolds has recommended maintaining the current funding level for Choose Iowa and the local food purchasing program.
Naig says IDALS has asked lawmakers to double Choose Iowa’s current funding. He hopes the department will be able to continue the pilot program.
“The point of a pilot is to learn something, and we’re certainly doing that,” Naig said. “So, whether that continues as a state-funded program, or whether that helps us better expend or more effectively expend federal dollars, that’s the point of that.”
Mahoney, the mushroom farmer, said it’s been crucial to his operation that the state recognize the importance of local food.
“It’s really essential that mushroom farms operate on a local basis as opposed to a national basis,” Mahoney said. “The reason for that is, small farms like mine are able to look after quality and freshness, which is not something that can be done on a larger scale.”
According to Naig, Choose Iowa has over 180 local food producers, processors, wholesalers and distributors that are members — and that number is growing every day.
