Not your typical activist group, European truffle producers have formed an alliance to promote a settlement of the long running dispute between the European Union (EU) and the United States over a ban on American imports of hormone treated beef.
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Washington is threatening to load retaliatory duties on European truffle exports, which makes EU producers fear their US market share for sales of this expensive delicacy may be lost to much cheaper American and Chinese truffles. EU producers dismiss these rivals as fraudulent imitations, claiming true truffles only exist in France, Spain and Italy, yet they have formed a European Tuber Group to defend their tariff threatened industry.
Meanwhile there is no sign that the beef dispute, fuelled by conflicting scientific estimates of the risks to humans of growth hormones, is about to end any time soon.
