By Gianina Schwanecke
Photo: Supplied
A plentiful supply of fresh, cheap vegetables has presented a new challenge for asparagus growers.
Asparagus growers have faced a tough couple of years driven largely by a mismatch in supply and demand – last year saw many growers selling their crop at giveaway prices and even offering extra incentives, like the chance to win travel vouchers worth thousands of dollars.
Asparagus Growers Council chairperson Cam Lewis said growers were excited to start harvesting after nine months of no asparagus, but many were also nervous.
“There’s some very cheap green veggies out there at the moment,” he said. “So it would be pretty naive for us to think asparagus is going to be able to be sold at a large premium [compared] to your broccolis and everything else.”
One of the challenges compared to other veggie growers was that asparagus was a perennial crop, he said.
“We’re planting our fields once every 15 to 20 years. So what that means is we’re not really able to adjust how much we’re growing year upon year top adjust to for market and adjust for demand.”
With the season just starting, there was still limited supply at the moment and prices were high. Lewis expected these would come down though as production ramped up.
Lewis, who himself operates out of Horowhenua, one of the country’s largest asparagus producing regions outside of Waikato, said many growers were hoping to “try and put last season behind us”.
“We’re hopeful that the lovers of asparagus will put it on their plate anyway. And I think people that have been eating asparagus for a while understand that it’s a pretty short season so you eat it while it’s available because soon enough Christmas is upon us and it’s gone again for another year.”
It had been a good fern growing season for most of the country with healthy crops that were almost ready to go.
Getting the asparagus in would be a less of a challenge this year, with previous labour shortage issues having resolved.
He said one grower had put an ad out and received 500 applications within a week, which was a “bit of a change”.
“Labour won’t be the issue for us this year which is nice. It’s been a probably the key issue for a number of years.”
Lewis said it would be a matter of being “realistic” about how much to harvest based on consumer feedback and demand.