Help for Struggling Asparagus Farmers

Help for Struggling Asparagus Farmers. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. The 2010 growing season is over for asparagus and according to Alan Schreiber with the Washington Asparagus Commission they are taking stock and trying to regroup. SCHREIBER: We had the worst year in history...in recent history. We had some cold weather which included some frost, we had some cool weather that just kept yields suppressed and then we had some windstorms that took us out of production. There was people that were out of production 7 to 10 days so it was kind of a tough, tough season. Prices were up this year because demand was there but supplies were down. But growers have also seen troubles recently with their trade programs and the USDA just announced the Asparagus Revenue Market Loss Assistance Payment Program. SCHREIBER: To understand this program you have to understand what the impetus was behind it. This is a program to help industries that have been unfairly impacted by foreign trade. Our government passed the Andean Trade Preference Act which gave trade preferences to our foreign primary competitor. This resulted in the decimation of the Washington asparagus industry; it also had impacts on the California and Michigan industries as well and this market loss program is to address the impacts of those trade issues. Schreiber says it will be a much needed shot in the arm for the industry. SCHREIBER: This is more of a long term fix. It's not going to immediately address the problem we had this year but I believe this program has helped change the attitude of the growers a little bit. This year is going to be the first year that there is more asparagus planted than taken out and this year there are more asparagus nurseries planted than there has in 10 years so I think in some growers there's some optimism. More nurseries will translate to more asparagus plants in the field which is a good sign. Washington growers will be seeing some help directly from this market loss program. Schreiber also says there is another concern that growers are looking at SCHREIBER: We are concerned about labor but we had sufficient labor this year but you know every year labor costs more and we're working on issues to try and reduce our dependence on labor. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.