Last year, driving through the country in the spring, I saw a rickety old board on big puffy wheels with four men seated on the edge, leaning over harvesting a long line of asparagus.
Let it never be forgotten that American agriculture rises or falls based on the availability of migrant workers.
Last year a shortage of migrant farmers due to draconian migrant crackdowns in the South reduced the Michigan apple supply in a bumper crop year costing farmers millions. Not enough folks picking the apple crop. Same story all around the US.
This year, due to early warm weather, the asparagus crop is coming up early before the migrant workers are up from Florida. The farmers up north are scrambling to find local folks to work the fields and harvest the crops.....I'm thinking the chances are pretty grim.
Asparagus spears have already poked through the ground in some parts of the state, long before the laborers are scheduled to be in the area to pick them.
If the growers can’t get their laborers here soon -- most of them living in Florida and Texas -- the acres of asparagus they won’t harvest in time will have to be mowed down, essentially wasted.
Two of my favorite Michigan crops, apples and asparagus, are getting hit hard from all the weird ass crap going on. Every year in the spring the farmer's market is overflowing with mounds of asparagus. My kids love it. My wife loves it. I love it. I love pickling it. Flash boiling it. Mincing a couple cups of it and dumping ketchup all over it while it cooks and using it as the main ingredient in mostly vegetable sloppy joes.
Ain't springtime in coastal West Michigan without the asparagus.
The farmer's are gonna get smacked down hard without something soon.
It should also be noted that blueberry farmers are screwed this year. The blueberry plants had no period of dormancy due to the extremely warm winter, which means they're less likely to flower and bear fruit this year. Bad news.