US Farms Inc. (fka USFM)

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Asparagus prices much higher than last year!

http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/3605

Freeze means no green for asparagus
By PAT MUIR
Yakima Herald-Republic

YAKIMA -- As if Central Washington's asparagus industry wasn't suffering enough from Peruvian competition and labor shortages, it now has a weather-shortened harvest season to deal with.

A five-day freeze that ended a week ago didn't get everyone's crop, but even those unscathed by it are suffering, said Alan Schreiber, executive director of the state Asparagus Commission. Statewide there are about 200 asparagus growers, and about half of them are in Yakima and Benton counties, he said.

"Even if you didn't get frosted out, you had a slowdown," Schreiber said. "And right now prices are through the roof, but because it's been so cold you can't bring it to market."

Washington is second in the nation in asparagus production to California, which has not been hit as hard by the recent cold weather.

Locally, those who were frosted out had to hire crews to cut the useless frozen asparagus out of the ground or the plants wouldn't produce new spears. So they took a particularly big financial hit, he said.

Others, such as Toppenish grower Kevin Bouchey, dodged the freeze but are about two weeks behind normal harvesting because of generally colder-than-normal weather this spring. With prices for 28-pound boxes ranging from $40 to $60, compared with prices in the mid-$30s last year, it's tough not to have crops ready, he said.

"The last half of April is just the time to cut asparagus -- it's just the time," Bouchey said. "And grower's haven't been able to do it."

The harvest normally begins around April 10 and goes to mid-June. The bulk of the crop is typically cut in May, but on an average year, 30 percent of a local grower's crop is cut in April, Bouchey said. Nearly all of that could be lost this year.

There's a chance that loss could be made up with a "bumper" May, but it's unlikely to completely offset April's losses, said Mike Miller, a Sunnyside grower and member of the state commission.

"With proper weather, we could have a hell of a May," he said.

There's also a chance the harvest could extend further into June, but a lot of things would have to fall into place, Schreiber said. If it's too hot, the heads of the asparagus spears fall off. And even if it stays cool, field crews will be moving on to other crops by then. Plus the relatively cheap-to-produce Peruvian asparagus starts flooding the market around midsummer.

That means making up for a late start with a late finish is something of a longshot, he said.

"The weather has to go our way, the labor needs to go our way, and the market price needs to go our way," Schreiber said.

It's particularly disappointing to face down the prospect of a bad-production year, because the domestic asparagus market seemed to have finally righted itself, Bouchey said. Imports from Peru have played havoc with the market since a 1991 free-trade deal. But local growers, having shifted from processed to fresh asparagus production in response to the competition, had worked supply and demand back into balance last year, he said.

Now, growers like Miller are pondering a shift to less-labor-intensive crops such as corn and wheat. That was the case regardless of this year's weather, but with already-thin margins, the cold just hurts that much more, he said.

Still, he's not ready to give up hope for this year -- not yet anyway.

"I'll tell you in June," he said.

* Pat Muir can be reached at 577-7693, or at

[e-mail].


All imho. GLTA.