Abstract
The income-generating dimension of berry and mushroom picking is important in many European countries or regions of countries, predominantly for rural livelihoods. Due to the role and economic potential in the utilization of non-wood forest products (NWFPs), there is a need, and also an increasing interest in, monitoring their market volume and values both at national and international levels. There is a wealth of information from different sources at the national level, but at the international level there is a need to harmonize the information. It is a major challenge for international data collection efforts to balance the need for harmonization of statistics without losing interesting information. This paper presents and analyses statistics on the quantity and value of two groups of marketed NWFPs: (1) mushrooms and truffles, and (2) fruits, berries and edible nuts. The statistics came from the State of Europe’s Forests 2007 report and its country reports. Our paper describes the shortcomings of the statistics and identifies potential explanations for the limitations. The results from this study reveal that the usability of data on marketed mushrooms and berries varies a lot between countries. In general, the data are incomplete and not comparable among countries. Another challenge is the consistency of information on production, trade and consumption flows. Based on a Finnish example, balance sheets can be used to control the consistency and derive missing sub-components of trade flows. A regional case study of Nordic and Baltic countries and the Russian Federation illustrates potential from national household and operator surveys for complementary information.
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Notes
For the definition of forest and other wooded land, see MCPFE/UNECE/FAO (2007).
National reports for SoEF2007 were reviewed mostly by experts from UNECE and FAO and, in addition, two experts designated by MCPFE member countries contributed to the process (Michalak, R., personal communication).
Data from countries were collected during spring 2010.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Mr. Roman Michalak (UNECE/FAO Timber Section) who provided valuable information on various issues related to international reporting of NWFPs, especially on issues related to SoEF2007. We also wish to thank the following national correspondents who were officially nominated to supply data for SoEF2007 and who were kind enough to give additional information for this study: Thomas Nord-Larsen (Denmark), Kari T. Korhonen (Finland), Thröstur Eysteinsson (Iceland) and Stein M. Tomter (Norway). Further, we are grateful to a number of other professionals who contributed to the contents of this study: Taimi Paal (Estonia), Ilze Silamikele and Lelda Pamovska (Latvia), Anna Barszcz (Poland) and Eddie Karlsson and Karl Duvemo (Sweden). Finally, we like to thank our colleagues Mr. Sergey Zudin and Mrs. Elena Zudina (EFI) for their support and help in different phases of the study.
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Turtiainen, M., Nuutinen, T. Evaluation of Information on Wild Berry and Mushroom Markets in European Countries. Small-scale Forestry 11, 131–145 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-011-9173-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-011-9173-z