Bounding out of her owner's white van, Lady puts her nostrils to the ground and zigzags between the oak trees. It takes the border collie less than 10 minutes to root out a small black lump which she is allowed to eat, then a larger one, which she isn't.
The second truffle, the size of a golf ball, is a prized tuber melanosporum, worth at least 20 euros (US$24) to the gourmet trade. But just as French farmers, facing reduced subsidies, are advised to switch to niche products -- such as truffles, fine cheeses and rare vegetable oils -- along comes an unwelcome rival: the tuber indicum, from China.
The Chinese "are said to be gathering truffles by the spadeful," said Lady's Japanese-born owner, Michiko van Obbergen. "Their truffle has less flavor and is often paler in color than our black tuber, but an untrained eye may not be able to tell them apart."
The truffle, a pungent fungus resembling a rough-skinned potato, grows around the roots of oak and walnut trees in chalky soil like that of south west France's rocky Lot department.
Such is the concern about the Chinese rival that European truffling countries -- previously jealously secretive and scathing about each other's tubers -- have united. Last weekend French, Italian, Spanish and Hungarian farmers and scientists met in Nice and founded the European Network Consortium of Trufficulture.
"We need more help from the scientists," said Jean-Charles Savignac, president of the Federation Francaise des Trufficulteurs. "So little research is available. Truffle harvests are a matter of luck."
The soil of south west France yielded only an estimated 11 tonnes between mid-October, when the season began, and last week, when it ended. In 1999 the harvest reached 40 tonnes. The decline pushed trade prices this winter to 1,000 euros a kilogram.
Tail wagging, Lady clambers back into the van. Van Obbergen, 60, won't say no to a cup of tea with Francine Chambert, 63, who owns the 101-hectare Bel Air estate where the truffles were found. Chambert, whose own dog died recently, depends on the goodwill of Lady and van Obbergen for her truffle hunts.
"Forty years ago, you walked into houses in the village and there were mountains of truffles on kitchen tables. Everyone had their basket of 8kg," Chambert said. "It takes at least seven years for the roots of an oak or walnut tree to yield truffles. I have 50 old oaks. I have planted a further 150 trees, but they will take another two or three years to yield."
"The young farmers tore up all the oak trees when there were no subsidies for truffle trees," she said.
Only one farmer in the area draws his main income from truffles. For everyone else they are a hobby.
Since the death of her husband 16 years ago, Chambert, a hard worker, has made her living from renting six rooms in her 17th century farmhouse to tourists. She offers a taste of life on the farm: home-made brioche, jams and aperitifs, oil from her walnuts and organic ewe's cheese made by her daughter Catherine.
Chambert believes that, beyond the next European budget in 2008, the future lies in tourism.
"The trouble is that you cannot have a countryside that is not maintained by farmers. Our problems are not just with Europe. French inheritance laws have become punitive. The British and Dutch who have bought property have saved many villages from ruin, but our property and land prices have soared," she said.
To survive, "there is a need to pinpoint new business areas to secure a basic income," she said.
One farmer has expanded his maize farm into a popcorn business.
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