He is the new star of garden centers. “With the crisis and the uncertainties hanging over the future, more and more individuals are planting truffle trees in their gardens”, notes Michel Tournayre, president of the French Federation of truffle growers. And the trend is only increasing: amateurs and professionals alike, the world market for Périgord black truffles, the most popular among lovers of good food, should grow by 19% by 2023 and probably double in 2030. , according to the research firm Technavio. “In France alone, a thousand hectares are planted each year”, notes Claude Murat, a researcher at Nancy’s INRAE.
Last year, some 30 tonnes of this buried fungus were harvested by around 20,000 truffle growers, mainly (80%) in the south-east between Drôme and Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, on small farms. . The opacity of this market and the strong seasonal variability of production do not facilitate comparisons from one year to another, but the French harvest has been considered to be generally stable for decades. As it takes about fifteen years for a truffle to give its full yield, planting efforts do not immediately translate into harvest.
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