File photo. Demand for asparagus is down by 25 percent. Photo: RNZ/Susan Murray
Asparagus growers are giving away travel vouchers worth thousands of dollars to help boost demand for the produce.
They say they are losing money on every bunch of asparagus that is sold and are also turning to the export market to absorb some volume, but there's no money in that either.
Asparagus Growers Council chairperson Cam Lewis said it was "pulling out all the stops" to do something because the crop was in the ground for 15 years so it had to play the long game.
Waikato and Horowhenua are the largest growing regions.
Lewis said demand was 25 percent down, possibly more, on expected levels.
Mowing a portion of produce was seen as the best way to maintain crop quality and avoid flooding a market where customers had less money for groceries than growers anticipated at the start of the season, Lewis said.
"We're back to retail prices that we probably haven't seen, or seen this early, for at least seven or eight years. Literally, every bunch that every asparagus grower is putting out the gate they're losing money on. We're all trying to harrow blocks or mow blocks, which takes them out of production for a week to 10 days at a time. ... it is a way to keep all of our staff going in the hopes that maybe something does change around demand and people start eating it a bit more. Then we can turn the blocks back on.
"But there will be pretty tough decisions to be made by most growers in the next week or so. If they do continue the season or if they literally close their blocks to keep the energy in them [the asparagus spears] for next season and walk away, start again in September next year," he said.
Lewis used to export asparagus to Japan under his own account, making annual visits to keep up relationships with importers, but over the years it' became uneconomic and uncertain. In the past two seasons, he and other growers have exported small quantities with Hawke's Bay-based Gourmet Blueberries.
He said this season had been a case of saying, "help we need to move product, can you help," and even though returns were minimal, it kept people employed.
"It's all well and good to say the growers are losing a little bit of money let's just close and walk away, but we've got 150 staff that turn up to work every day, they've got to buy their groceries too, we've got to do right by our people or they won't come back next year when the season's maybe better.
"Gourmet Blueberries are the biggest asparagus traders in the world, they've got customers all over the world that buy asparagus from them, from other parts of the world and it seems that they're able to tap back into those customers now. Just small volumes and the money is not great but it's keeping everyone busy and it's putting it [asparagus] somewhere," Lewis said.
As an industry, the growers are also dipping into long-term reserves to give the green spears a push on the local scene, offering travel vouchers.
Buy two bunches and "every two weeks there's a $5000 travel voucher up for grabs", Lewis said.