「经济学人」The fungus is just starting

Teruel has replaced France’s Périgord atop the tuber charts

AS A CHILD, Manolo Doñate often saw strange men with dogs in the mountains near his house in Sarrión, a town in the Teruel province of Aragón. They were hunting the abundant wild truffles. In the 1980s, while visiting a plantation in France, he decided to become the first in Teruel to cultivate truffle-producing oak trees.

“People thought he was crazy,” says Simona, his daughter. Little was known about how to farm the fungus; it takes around ten years for the trees to produce. But it worked. Today Teruel is the world’s biggest producer of Tuber melanosporum, the prince of black truffles. Last year the region exported more than 26,000kg of them.

Production from France’s Périgord region, previously the biggest producer, has plummeted over the past century, as farmers switched to easier crops. (Truffle farmers must introduce the fungus to the trees and replant each one in a field; when they produce, finding them requires trained animals.) But Teruel’s meagre soil is unfit for most crops, so locals have bet everything on the black diamonds. Production has enriched farmers: black truffles fetch up to €700 ($770) per kilogram. And it has halted depopulation: Sarrión’s population has held steady even as Aragón’s has fallen.

The next step is international recognition, says Daniel Brito, head of Teruel’s truffle-farming association. Périgord truffles are still the gold standard. Mr Brito hopes to win a “geographical indication”, like those for champagne or Parma ham, before the next season starts. Another challenge is that Spaniards rarely eat truffles. They were banned during the Spanish Inquisition as a poison from hell. To Teruel, however, they are a gift from heaven.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “The fungus is just starting”(Aug 15th 2024)

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