Peering through the thick fog, it was almost a game of ‘spot the asparagus spear’ when Gazette journalist SHELBY BROOKS and photographer STEWART CHAMBERS visited Raffa Fields in Tooradin on Saturday 10 July. July is the quietest month on an asparagus farm, with the plant dormant and patiently waiting for warmer weather before reappearing from the ground. But as the spring season approaches, the Gazette wanted to take a look at how farmers were anticipating the harvesting season following last year’s difficulty securing overseas seasonal workers due to the global Covid-19 pandemic.
“There was a lot of lost opportunity for a lot of growers; it was a very difficult year,” Adrian Raffa said, as he recalled the challenges Covid-19 presented crop growers in 2020.
“Last year we weren’t able to get a reliable workforce with all the boarders shut. Our traditional workforce from Vanuatu is really the only resort for asparagus because it is so labour intensive.
“Industry wide there were huge labour shortages so what that meant was that paddocks went unharvested.”
Adrian and cousin Vince are the third generation of Raffas to be working for the family business, Raffa Fields, which grows asparagus in Tooradin, Catani and Kooweerup.
The business was established by their late grandfather in the 1950s after he emigrated to Australia from Italy.
Now the business is run by Adrian and Vince’s fathers, brothers Con and Lou Raffa.
“It’s not quite third generation run, yet,” Adrian said, laughing.
Usually, a couple of hundred seasonal workers, largely men from Vanuatu, are employed to help harvest the crops, but last year they were unable to enter Australia due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.
They had nowhere near enough local or Melbourne-based seasonal workers to cover the shortfall.
“We have one of the largest influx of seasonal workers,” Adrian said.
“Harvesting is hard work. It seems easy but really it requires skill and patience.
“Last season we scraped through.”
He said for the 2021 growing season, they had “on paper approval industry wide” from Agriculture Victoria to allow seasonal workers into the country.
“We’re holding our breath,” Adrian said.
Adrian said they usually front between $400-500 per worker but this year with quarantine that will increase to $2,500 per worker.
“It’s a significant expense but we don’t have too many options,” he said.
A spokesperson for Agriculture Victoria said the Victorian Government continued to work closely with farmers and the sector to understand the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Earlier this year the Victorian Government secured an agreement with the Tasmanian Government which is ensuring that 1,500 workers from the Pacific Islands can quarantine interstate and work on our farms,” they said.
“We are covering the majority of costs associated with quarantining 1,500 Pacific workers through a $7.8 million funding commitment and industry will contribute $2,000 per worker.”
95 per cent of Australian asparagus is grown in the Kooweerup region.
It’s known as ‘the golden mile’, a region which extends through Tooradin and Kooweerup.
“The reason why we grow so much asparagus here is because we are fortunate enough to have really fertile soils,” Adrian said.
“The soil is exclusive to this area.”
The Australian asparagus market has grown significantly in the last 30-odd years.
“The business used to supply about 20 per cent domestically and 80 per cent was exports,” Adrian said.
“In the last 15 years or so, we’ve seen a transition to the Australian market into taking that lion’s share.
“So now about 65 per cent of our business is domestic.”
Vince recalled a time his father Lou Raffa was on The Bert Newton Show, showing audiences how to cook asparagus.
“People saw it on the TV and said we’ll go buy it tonight because they saw how easy it was to cook,” he said.
“There’s even more cooking shows now so it’s a lot more visible.”
Interestingly, the domestic and export markets have different specifications considered ‘ideal’ for the perfect piece of asparagus.
“We tend to sell the largest and thickest spears, up to about 25mm in diameter, to places like Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia,” Adrian said.
“That’s way too thick for the domestic market in Australia.“
As Vince explained, the thicker spears involved a longer process to cook and were often split in half.
“Here, people want things as quick as possible. We’re fortunate we’ve got really good demand locally for small and thinner spears and we really sell a premium thick asparagus into Asia,” he said.
Though the asparagus isn’t grown specifically for each specification, Adrian explained.
“When asparagus is cut from the farm, it’s in all different lengths and sizes,” he said.
“What the customer wants is something uniform. That’s for both the domestic and export market. So we use an optical grading system which singulates every spear and takes a photo of each to sort them into uniform bunches.”
Asparagus is seasonal, so during winter the vegetable is imported to Australian supermarkets from North and South America.
To try extend the Australian season for as long as possible, Raffa Fields holds two harvest seasons; spring and summer.
Traditionally, growers will just participate in the spring season, running from September through to December.
Raffa Fields also has crops prepared for a summer season, running from late December to early April.
“Not many growers do both seasons,” Adrian said.
“But we want to keep Australian asparagus to our customers for the longest possible period of time.
“But the spring yield is much higher and there’s no need for irrigation.”
Now, you might be wondering if Adrian and Vince are sick of asparagus after so many years surrounded by the vegetable.
“Everybody asks me this question and honestly, I love the stuff,” Adrian said.
“I think it’s one of those vegetables that once people realise how easy it is to cook, it’s so convenient. It can be a five minute meal with little to no prep.”
The best way to eat it is on a hotplate or barbecue, Adrian said.
“Get it on the barbecue, on the hot plate, bit of oil, get it a little bit burnt and add salt and pepper and you’re laughing,” he said.
“Keep it simple. Don’t go running for prosciutto.
“Going to university in the day, all of my friends didn’t use to like it because they boiled it, and that’s a great way to destroy asparagus.
“People just really need to get out of the comfort zone with asparagus and grow to love it.”
Fun asparagus facts
1. In optimal conditions, asparagus can grow one inch an hour.
2. The average life span of an asparagus plant is 10 years, though some live over 20 years.
3. For those in the know, asparagus is known as spari.
4. The Raffas are always on the hunt for secondhand golf clubs which are turned into homemade asparagus cutters by welding the handle of the club to a paint scraper.
