DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY, SCOTLAND: Alisha produces an unusual crop – organically-grown gourmet mushrooms – on a 15-acre (6-hectare) estate in Scotland’s Southern Uplands. She hand-grows over 20 varieties of mushroom, which are snapped up enthusiastically by chefs and mushroom connoisseurs and sold through selected retailers across the country.

Alisha’s background is not your usual farming background either. After earning degrees in Art History and in Social Anthropology at Cambridge University, plus a doctorate in Business Management in Switzerland, in her early twenties she moved to Jamaica to farm butterflies and to found a boutique destination wedding venue. While running the latter she taught herself the art of mushroom cultivation to cater to the venue's international predominantly vegetarian and vegan clientele. After nearly a decade, she had become a pro.

She then joined forces with her mother to buy an estate in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, and turned its outbuildings into a mushroom farm called Deer Manor. Word quickly spread about the quality and range of her gourmet mushrooms and the business took off. She started also offering mushroom grow kits, founded a mushroom cookery school and produced a recipe book.

Alisha cultivates in small batches using low-tech practices. Harvesting is all done by hand. The mushrooms range from relatively well-known varieties such as Shiitake and King Oyster to rarer ones such as Dryad’s Saddle and Coral Tooth. She even produces a Chocolate Oyster with a robust texture and a wonderfully chocolatey hue.

Care for the environment is a priority, says Alisha. “We use organic methods and materials which promote biodiversity and nurture our wildscapes.” For instance, instead of using imported soy-based materials for substrate (the growing medium in which mushroom mycelium develop), Alisha uses by-products from other industries, such as hardwood sawdust from lumbermills and organic wheat bran from flour mills. To sterilise the substrate (to ensure it’s colonised only by the intended mushroom mycelia) she uses pressurised steam rather than chemicals. Lighting is kept to a minimum to avoid disturbing the abundant local wildlife.

Once the mushrooms have been produced, Alisha uses the nutrient-rich spent substrate on the estate or gives it to local farmers as fertiliser.

“Hopefully all of what I do contributes to creating a sustainable food system and addressing pressing issues like climate change and food insecurity,” she says.

Alisha really enjoys the beauty and intricacy of mushrooms, from their fantastical, even other-worldly appearance to the fascinating process of their growth. “Witnessing the mycelium colonise the substrate and seeing mushrooms fruit is deeply satisfying,” she says.

At the same time, she’s acutely aware of the fragility of mushroom farming. “The ongoing, relentless risk of contamination and the looming spectre of crop failure cast a shadow over the otherwise beautiful process of mushroom cultivation. It's sobering to know that the success or failure of the business - and the ultimate reward for my endeavours - hinges on microscopic, invisible factors that could obliterate everything in an instant. Thankfully, so far I haven't experienced such devastation.”

Alisha would like to see black, female, farmers like herself becoming more visible, and hopes that being part of Just Farmers will help this process. “By sharing my journey and experiences, I hope to showcase how diverse the black and farming communities are,” she says.