The dream that a Lechonk will dig up truffles, Sitrus berries, or some other extremely valuable item is one that has sustained struggling farmers in Paldea for generations. But we should not imagine, as some agrarian modernizers contemptuously stated, that they raised Lechonk as living lottery tickets, while other species posed a slower but far more reliable path to wealth. Lechonk's meat is tougher than Tepig's, but it remains a popular local specialty and a common meat in Paldean cuisine. And its constant digging, even when it did not find treasure, overturned acres of soil which would otherwise require the use of hoe or plough.

Most importantly, much to the unwitting chagrin of the first Tepig and Spoink farmers in Paldea, Lechonk emit a strong stench which keeps pests away. Those whose fields were picked bare by swarms of Lokix surely envied those who raised Lechonk and thereby avoided that fate – when they were not reduced to robbing or begging them to survive the winter. It was likely with an eye to suppressing the Lokix population of Paldea that a famous king and queen once passed an edict requiring all farmers with sufficient land to maintain a Lechonk, although religious intolerance and breaking down taboos also played a role.

It is regrettably common, in this age of tractors and pesticides, for even learned farmers to denounce Lechonk as obsolete. But, apart from their greater sustainability, one should remember that there is no such thing as a purely agricultural pokemon. Lechonk's treasure hunting nose is far more likely to help trainers on the road or in the wilderness than it ever was to find things on a farm, and the thick bodies which make their meat tough also let them hold their own in battle.