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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agricultural and Food Economics
Volume 8 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2024.1474624

The impact of competition for picking wild edible mushrooms and the opportunity cost for rural communities: The case of Castile and León (Spain)

Provisionally accepted
Pablo De Frutos Madrazo Pablo De Frutos Madrazo 1*Joaquín Latorre Minguell Joaquín Latorre Minguell 1*Pedro Antonio Martín-Cervantes Pedro Antonio Martín-Cervantes 1*Fernando Martínez Peña Fernando Martínez Peña 2*
  • 1 University of Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain
  • 2 Forest Resources Unit, Agrifood Research and Technology Centre of Aragón, Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Picking wild edible mushrooms is a key activity both for rural as well as urban communities. Studies into the topic support the notion of the major socio-economic benefits, which increase both producer as well as consumer surplus. However, to date, no study has estimated picking harvests in the way this study does or what effects these might have on local communities with regard to other activities, both in terms of work and leisure time. This study explores both issues, taking as an indicator a variable used in conventional analysis in other sectors, yet which thus far has not been employed in wild edible mushroom picking: productivity value. The chosen study area is the autonomous community of Castile and León, a Spanish region with an important and long-running mycological tradition. Using the decision-making method between individuals' leisure time and work time, the authors test the corresponding hypotheses. The results that emerge for the years analyzed (2013 and 2014) support the hypothesis of distorting/moderating effects related to the effects of picking yields on pickers' income and their impact on the individual supply for labor function of pickers.

    Keywords: Wild edible mushrooms, picking yields, hourly wage comparison, labor market and rural areas, Castile and León

    Received: 22 Aug 2024; Accepted: 27 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 De Frutos Madrazo, Latorre Minguell, Martín-Cervantes and Martínez Peña. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Pablo De Frutos Madrazo, University of Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain
    Joaquín Latorre Minguell, University of Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain
    Pedro Antonio Martín-Cervantes, University of Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain
    Fernando Martínez Peña, Forest Resources Unit, Agrifood Research and Technology Centre of Aragón, Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.