What does it really take to build a mushroom farm from the ground up—without a roadmap, a safety net, or a tidy business plan?

This talk pulls back the curtain on more than a decade of trial, error, and hard-earned insight from Neil and the Columbia Mushroom Company. From early failures and near misses to unexpected breakthroughs and small wins that changed everything, this is an unfiltered look at the realities of mushroom cultivation as both a craft and a business.

We’ll trace the winding path of how the farm came to be, the evolution of setups and equipment, and the cultivation techniques that grew alongside experience—from beginner mistakes to expert-level production. Along the way, you’ll hear what worked, what absolutely didn’t, and why mushroom farming is as much about resilience and adaptation as it is about fungi.

Whether you’re curious about growing mushrooms, dreaming of starting your own operation, or just want a candid look at what life looks like behind the scenes of a niche agricultural business, this session dives into the good, the bad, and yes—the ugly.

Neil Brent:

Neil Brent is the owner and visionary behind Columbia Mushroom Company.  He began growing mushrooms in 2015 as a small experiment in the corner of his living room, drawing on his background in cultivating liquid yeast for the brewing industry. What started as a side project quickly turned into a deep fascination, pushing him to build, test, fail, and rebuild as his growing space expanded from a handmade room-within-a-room to a full farm in Hood River County, Oregon.

Over the years, Neil has developed his own cultivation systems through constant experimentation, adapting alongside a rapidly evolving specialty mushroom industry. Every piece of equipment he uses has been modified, invented, or refined through hands-on trial and error, and every process reflects years of learning what works—and what doesn’t. Columbia Mushroom Company is, in many ways, a reflection of Neil himself—curious, adaptive, community-driven, and built one experiment at a time.