An article highlights the urgent need for specific regulations to ensure legal certainty and boost the sector
Researchers from the Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC), Agrotecnio, and the Faculty of Law at the University of Lleida warn of the urgent need to clearly regulate truffle cultivation in Spain. César Cierco Seira, Eduard-Valentin Pavel, Daniel Oliach Lesan and José Antonio Bonet Lledós have led the study published in the Revista General de Derecho Administrativo (General Journal of Administrative Law), in which they point out that the lack of specific regulations could hinder the development of a sector with high economic and strategic value.
The article, entitled “The blurred line between agriculture and forestry: the case of truffle plantations,” analyses the problems of legal uncertainty affecting truffle cultivation, mainly due to the legal vagueness of the concept of ‘forest land’ and the blurred line between agricultural and forest land.
“Without a clear regulatory framework, landowners and investors face uncertainties that hinder decision-making, especially in the case of a crop with high initial investment and long-term returns” explains César Cierco, professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lleida.
In recent decades, truffle cultivation has established itself as a strategic activity for rural development, offering high economic returns and significant environmental, social and cultural benefits. In addition to diversifying agricultural activity, it contributes to population retention in the region, active landscape management and forest fire prevention.
“Truffle cultivation has made significant technical progress, but it still lacks a legal framework that provides producers with certainty. A specific regulation is essential to strengthen the sector and ensure sustainable management,” says Daniel Oliach, researcher at the CTFC and head of the Mycology and Tubericulture research group.
The cases of Italy and the Valencian Community
The study analyses the reform of Law 3/1993 on forestry in the Valencian Community, implemented in December 2024, as a significant step towards addressing this issue. This amendment establishes that truffle cultivation on agricultural land should be considered an agricultural activity rather than a forestry activity. The Valencian regulations also establish that truffle cultivation on forest land may be temporarily considered agricultural land during the exploitation period.
Despite positively assessing the efforts of the Valencian legislature, the researchers warn that this solution presents legal and conceptual risks, especially in terms of the possible alteration of the basic forest land regime and consistency with the principle of sustainable forest management.
The study points to the Italian model as a benchmark, as it has a specific national law on truffles that comprehensively regulates production, cultivation, harvesting, marketing and certification, with a clear distinction between cultivated truffles, truffles controlled in forest environments and wild truffles.
Three scenarios for the future of the sector
The authors propose distinguishing between three different realities: truffle cultivation on agricultural land, which should be definitively excluded from the concept of forest or ‘forest land’; truffle cultivation on forest land, which should be integrated into the logic of sustainable forest management, without losing its status as forest; And finally, wild truffle harvesting, which requires a thorough regulatory update, especially in terms of professionalisation, poaching and food marketing guarantees.
‘If we want truffles to be a real driver of rural development and environmental sustainability, we must go beyond partial modifications and move towards a specific law for the sector,’ says José Antonio Bonet, professor of Plant Production at the University of Lleida and director of Agrotecnio.
The authors conclude that if we really want to promote the truffle sector as a driver of rural development and a tool for environmental sustainability, we must go beyond partial modifications to forestry legislation and move towards a specific law for the truffle sector. A specific regulatory framework would provide legal certainty, regulatory consistency and institutional recognition for an activity with enormous strategic potential for rural areas.
Last modified: 9 February 2026
