Rain, frost and only the occasional sun. Spring is cold. Still, asparagus farmers have nothing to complain about, they say. Customers know where to find the farm shops and thanks to heated fields and double foil, quite a few kilos of asparagus also come from the land.
Willem van Gerven, asparagus farmer from Oirschot, expects about seven hundred customers at his farm shop on Saturday. The day before there were four hundred. Despite the cold, people are hungry for the white gold. Energy prices are much higher than last year. Still, he asks the same amount for the vegetables as in 2022, he says.
“We give in a little bit ourselves. But we’d rather do that than scare people off. People with state pension should also be able to eat asparagus. So we sell them from 5 to 15 euros, depending on quality and thickness.”
Van Gerven’s fields are no longer heated. The asparagus therefore come from the cold field, but with double foil because of the cold spring. “I expect the weather to improve. In May we can probably harvest a lot more. But even now we have enough to provide people from the region (Oirschot, Best, Eindhoven).”
“Asparagus from the cold ground now grows very slowly”
Farmer Erik Verhoeven from Cromvoirt is also happy with the sale and harvest. “We are extremely satisfied. Asparagus are actually emotional vegetables. People mainly eat them when the sun is shining. But luckily we have real diehards as customers, who even come when it’s freezing. Nothing has to go to the auction at all. Our customers buy everything,” says Verhoeven.
Verhoeven does heat his fields. “We also have asparagus from the cold ground. But they are now growing very slowly. Last week one of our asparagus cutters collected 22 kilos from half a hectare. Two boxes, that’s very little. That’s just because of the cold. Last week even 2000 kilos of green asparagus growing above the ground were frozen here.”
At the auction you now pay 10 euros for a kilo of asparagus. The margin of the supermarkets then comes on top of that. At the asparagus farmer in Cromvoirt you pay a maximum of 12.50 euros. “Last year it was a tenner at the end of April. But despite those higher prices, it is very busy in the store. Last Sunday it looked like Easter in terms of crowds. I could hardly believe it, with this weather.”