More asparagus from Nord Rhein Westfallen

According to the declaration made by Mr Anton Holz - Vice President of the Agriculture Chamber of Nord Rhein Westfallen - NRW takes now the second place in asparagus production having farming area of 4000 hectares. The asparaguses are one of the most demanded season-vegetables by the german consumers. The germans are the world champions consuming yearly 1,25 kilo per head of this vegetable. As it comes out from a research on shopping carried out by private households - the priority is to buy directly at the farmer or weekend markets before supermarkets or discount stores. According to the research, 2/3 of the vegetables are bought directly on farmer-yard. 10 percent of the asparaguses go to the restaurants and 25% of the vegetables are taken by the wholesale, groceries and producers organisations. In the past years, the Nord Rhein Westfallen has seen a rapid development. The production area in 1990 amounted to 750 hectares - the growing area of the asparaguses production is carried out on 4000 hectares by 510 producers today. This makes about one fifth of the total area of 22 000 hectares used for the production of asparaguses in Germany. 2006 was not an easy year for asparagus farmers - "besides the complicated regulations for using season laborers, necessary in this production, coming from Eastern-Europe, we had not suitable weather during the season" - said Mr. Holz. The Vice President noted however some optimistic factors to the coming season: a new system of PCV-foil-cover will make it possible to deliver to consumers, earlier this year, fresh asparaguses.