California asparagus growers see opportunity in NAFTA renegotiations
California asparagus farmers see the renegotiations as an opportunity for a fresh start and hope that the final agreement could be a boon to the struggling industry.
“At the turn of the century, asparagus acreage in California was hovering around 36,000 acres,” says California Asparagus Commission director Cherie Watte. “Today we are under about 8,000 acres.”
She says NAFTA increased competition from Mexico because of cheaper labor, and that’s one major reason asparagus growers in California are struggling. Watte’s submitted her recommendations for changes to the agreement to U.S. trade representatives.
But, it’s not always as simple as U.S. interests versus Mexican or Canadian interests. Some agriculture is binational today.
“We’re seeing a lot of our producers going down into Mexico,” says California Farm Bureau Federation president Paul Wenger. “So when you start talking about doing anything that could hinder trade out of Mexico, those are really American growers, and often California growers.”
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