The development of a Piedmont mountain area through the valorisation of black truffle

The paper describes a valorisation process in a marginal territory of Piedmont and analyses the recovery process of Black truffles production, focusing on the importance of the associative forms of management. The objective is to describe the study-case of Valle Grana producers, analysing the distinctive aspects and evaluating its reproducibility in similar conditions, which are typical of Italian marginal lands. The valorisation action has started building a new territorial strategy of local actors, setting up black truffle plantations and taking care, in the same time, of surrounding marginal lands. The success of truffles valorisation has represented the background for the creation of a voluntary “land owner association” which involves as many as 64 private owners and a public administration and more than 100 hectares of surface. These lands will be recovered from abandonment thanks to controlled ovine grazing, ensuring fertility improvement and stability of lands and reducing the shrub invasion.