South Africa's 'crazy' mountain farmers cash in on truffle bet

Paul with his dog, Baccio, an Italian Lagotto Romagnolo breed commonly used for truffle-hunting, on the family farm close to the town of Ceres in the Western Cape Province. Photos: Rodger Bosch/AFP

Only shrubs grew naturally in the sandy acid soil that farmer Volker Miros chose as a site to test the potential for truffle production in South Africa.

The determined mycophile saw no reason why the highly prized fungi could not grow on the plateaus of South Africa's rugged Cederberg mountains in the west of the country, where the climate is similar to that of Mediterranean Europe.