asparagus

Celestino Mendoza loads colorful plastic asparagus lugs off the flatbed of a '95 Ford pickup at the end of a warm day.His woven straw hat shades his face,…

Much of the Northwest’s high country is still deep in good snowpack but short on rain this spring. That has dryland wheat farmers and cattle ranchers fretting. Cold, wind and dust are even wreaking havoc with produce farmers in the region.

For the last decade, the Northwest asparagus industry has been challenged by lower-cost imports, labor shortages and increased farming costs. But this year, the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the foreign asparagus supply, increasing sales for the Northwest’s crop.

Growers in Washington, California and Michigan raise the majority of the nation’s domestic asparagus -- and Washington’s season is on. But business in U.S. spears is noticeably dwindling due to cheaper competition from foreign markets.That’s because there’s increasing amounts of cheaper asparagus from Peru and Mexico coming in: fresh, canned and frozen. And that’s cutting into profits for U.S. growers.