Dear AFOB Members,
First, let me express my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Suraini Abd-Aziz, Chairman of AFOMB Malaysia, for her invitation to share a portion of my research with all AFOB members. At the University of Malaya's Functional Omics and Bioprocess Development Laboratory, Faculty of Science, Institute of Biological Sciences, I currently hold the positions of senior lecturer and fermentation technologist. My former supervisors at Glasgow's Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences were Prof. Linda Harvey, author of Practical Fermentation Technology (John Wiley & Sons), and Prof. Brian McNeil, an expert on fungal fermentation. My qualifications include a BSc in Microbiology (Local Basidiomycetes), an MSc in Food Biotechnology (Bioprocessing), and a PhD in Fermentation Technology. My research focuses on extended liquid fermentation and mushroom microbiology (Ganoderma lucidum). In order to increase the availability of the naturally occurring medicinal component G. lucidum and so improve health and wellbeing, I used my knowledge in mushroom liquid cultivation. Utilizing "quad-functional" compounds is made possible by the development of prolonged batch fermentation and sulfated glucan from G. lucidum mycelium as sulfated glucan will take the place of synthesised drugs with a single purpose. I developed this approach after having years of expertise in research, assessment, teaching, and administration in both laboratories and educational institutions. In Morocco 2019 鈥'Innovative, sustainable, and circular agricultural systems for the future" employing mushrooms, i represented Malaysia among nineteen world scientists on food security post-2050. I was recruited as a visiting research fellow at Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest in Ireland till 2024 at the age of 35 and have 55 high-quality research articles to my name. I was also chosen to be a Research Fellow at CESPRO UKM and a member of the Young Scientist Network (YSN)-Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM) till 2024. (2021-2023). I recently contributed a chapter to a Taylor and Francis book titled Cultivation Strategies of Medicinal Mushrooms in Submerged-liquid Fermentation (SLF).
My Current niche area:
- 路 Submerged Liquid Fermentation of Ganoderma/Algae/Lignosus species in a Specialized Bioreactor
- 路 Application of Ganoderma in wastewater treatment and bioremediation
- 路 Mushrooms-based Products and Food Technology
- 路 Improvement of Soy sauce koji and morom
Transforming Mushroom Rural to Urban Cultivation for Sustainable Food and Feed Biomass
Wan Abd Al Qadr Imad Wan-Mohtar (Universiti Malaya)
It has been established that there is a severe lack of space for food production, with just roughly 450 m2 available per person in the worst-affected region of Africa in the year 2100 once there are 5.8 billion people. Researchers are looking at ways to produce more food faster while utilising less land due to the world's population expansion and the global decline in the amount of cropland accessible per person. A landless food idea, which establishes a circular agricultural system employing bioreactors, is one such approach. In light of this constraint, the task is to produce enough food while staying within it in a circular and sustainable manner without importing food or animal feed from abroad. Only with extremely effective use of the existing biomass is this feasible. It is conceivable to optimise traditional food production techniques like farming and fishing, but this won't result in enough food biomass to feed the expanding population. Biomass that is not ingested or digested by humans can be utilised for off-farm food, energy, reactor-based fertiliser, and green mushroom production systems to improve the system's efficiency. By converting a land-based (rural) to a landless (urban) based agriculture system, using mushrooms as the processing model, the current technique is demonstrated.
Figure 1: Urban agriculture transitioning from rural with the mushroom as the model
Mushrooms, which are frequently produced using agricultural waste, can be successfully grown in bioreactors in urban areas. Growing medicinal mushrooms is a long-established practise. Controlled cultivation in heterotrophic bioreactors has been created to shorten cultivation times and boost quality (Figure 1). In contrast to the typical 6-month period needed for rural mushroom production, urban technology for quick cultivation (10 days or fewer) of Ganoderma lucidum mycelial cultures has recently been created. These effective bioreactor-based liquid mushroom growing methods can be implemented into the food and biomass production chain for the production of food without the use of any land, particularly in aquaculture systems that need reliable supplies of protein-rich food.
Both rural and urban-based mushroom biomass has been used successfully as functional enhancers in various food products. Because of its high nutritional value and high levels of protein (32.23%), dietary fibre (13.8%), carbohydrates (48.38%), ash (1.14%), and lipids (4.45%), bioreactor-grown mushroom biomass, in particular G. lucidum, has gained acceptance as a substitute for food or animal feed. The biomass could be developed into a "Novel Food" for human consumption because to its high protein content. Figure 2 depicted a clear example of novel food production with consumer acceptance on this blueprint which can be applied in high-scale system.
Figure 2: Bioreactor-mushroom biomass patty production and its consumer acceptance (with permission from Wan-Mohtar et al., 2020)
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the long-term support of Institute of Organic Agriculture (ISOFAR), Germany and Th眉nen Institute of Technology, Germany specifically for this landless food production project.
Selected publications for this project:
- 路 Klaus, A., & Wan-Mohtar, W. A. A. Q. I. (2022). Cultivation strategies of edible and medicinal mushrooms. In Wild Mushrooms (pp. 23-65). CRC Press.
- 路 Rahmann, G., Azim, K., Br谩nyikov谩, I., Chander, M., David, W., Erisman, J. Wan-Mohtar, W.A.A.Q.I., ... & van Huis, A. (2021). Innovative, sustainable, and circular agricultural systems for the future. Organic Agriculture, 11(2), 179-185.
- 路 Wan鈥怣ohtar, W. A. A. Q. I., Halim鈥怢im, S. A., Kamarudin, N. Z., Rukayadi, Y., Abd Rahim, M. H., Jamaludin, A. A., & Ilham, Z. (2020). Fruiting鈥恇ody鈥恇ase flour from an Oyster mushroom waste in the development of antioxidative chicken patty. Journal of food science, 85(10), 3124-3133.
- 路 Wan-Mohtar, W. A. A. Q. I ., Taufek, N. M., Yerima, G., Rahman, J., Thiran, J. P., Subramaniam, K., & Sabaratnam, V. (2021). Effect of bioreactor-grown biomass from Ganoderma lucidum mycelium on growth performance and physiological response of red hybrid tilapia (Oreochromis sp.) for sustainable aquaculture. Organic Agriculture, 11(2), 327-335.
