By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan asparagus growers have gotten a significant price increase this year, but this good news is set against a backdrop of long-term downward pricing pressures because of foreign competition.

“I think we have a very good price for the year,” said Ken Nye, manager of the asparagus division of the Michigan Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Assoc. (MACMA).

This is a state certified association that has the authority to negotiate prices with fruit and vegetable processors in the state. That new price is 67 cents a pound, which is what the processors will pay the growers for their product. The agreement was reached earlier this month. “We’ve had a good relationship with the processors for the past few years. We’re fortunate in Michigan that we have a strong state law that gives us some power,” he said.

Just a few years ago, asparagus growers’ relationship with processors was so bad that one year they couldn’t even agree on a price for the product, and went for a season without a contract. John Bakker, executive director of the Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board, was seeing the glass as more half empty than half full.
“Very few growers are excited about this price,” he said. “We desperately, desperately needed the increase. It’s up 10 percent from last year. Costs are up about 15 percent.”

Bakker said the new price for asparagus in the state isn’t that high. He said during the latter half of the 1990s, the price was a low of 62 cents a pound and a high of 66 cents a pound.

“Ten years ago asparagus growers were making some money. Right now it’s pretty tight,” he said.

Bakker listed items that had gone up in price, sometimes dramatically. In the past few years, nitrogen fertilizer prices have tripled, he said. A few years ago potash was $150 a ton; now it’s $700 a ton. The price of fuel has doubled. The price of labor has gone up.

“The new price may sound good, but there’s probably very few growers who are excited about this price. Foreign imports have really just taken the fun out of growing asparagus. Very few new farmers are going into it,” he explained.

He also stated there are about half the number of asparagus growers nationwide of what there were five years ago. Michigan, California and Washington are the three main asparagus-growing states. In Michigan, the number of acres used for asparagus has gone down, from 16,500 five years ago to 11,000 today.

Nye agreed the long-term trends haven’t been positive. Many of the processors that were in Washington picked up and went to Peru, he said. But the situation in Michigan is different, to some extent.
Processors in Michigan are smaller and handle a diversity of crops, not just asparagus.

Nye said it makes sense for processors here to continue processing asparagus, because it fits into their seasonal schedule.

“Our handlers are not going to go to Peru and set up shop,” he said, adding that Michigan asparagus is usually processed, while Peruvian asparagus is sold more heavily as a fresh market product.
Bakker wasn’t all doom and gloom. “I think more consumers are aware of where their produce is coming from and want to buy produce locally,” Bakker said. “The combination of a weaker dollar, the cost of bringing produce over from foreign countries – I think these factors could help turn things around.”

This farm news was published in the April 23, 2008 issue of the Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.