Cap on, a big smile on your face and a trunk full of asparagus. Franz Nestler is sitting in the car and is on the way from Pilsensee to Ammersee. He travels through Upper Bavaria from one market to the next from Tuesday to Saturday. Nestler, 44, is an asparagus farmer in Hohenried, which is part of the Schrobenhausen growing region, from where every third Bavarian asparagus spear comes. Nestler’s family has been in the business for 25 years. It was supposed to be crisis-proof. Supposedly.
After the Germans were prepared to spend a lot of money on seasonal vegetables for a long time, it seems to be over this year, with farmers in and around Schrobenhausen sales have fallen by ten to 15 percent, other areas are even reporting a minus of up to 30 percent. “Asparagus is a luxury vegetable,” says Nestler, “when people have less money, it’s quite logical that they don’t spend their savings on a feel-good product like asparagus,” says Nestler. The chain of effects: war in Ukraine, higher energy costs, rising inflation rate, less money in the coffers. Franz Nestler was never a stranger to economics. He used to work for the savings bank and took over his father’s farm six years ago. “I had to take action,” says Nestler, when else do you have the opportunity to take over such a business, the entire operation, without first having to make a large investment? In addition, a business that he knew from an early age. “Being an asparagus farmer means that the whole family has to lend a hand.” So now not only his parents, but also his own three children; 19, 17 and twelve years old. “You have to ask them yourself if they enjoy it.”
Only 15 instead of 25 seasonal workers
So now the crisis. In order to save costs, many farmers decide to at least only partially harvest their fields – which is actually only done if the harvesting costs are higher than the price to be expected at the time of sale. It is currently just under seven euros per kilo, almost one euro less than a year ago. Nestler cut an estimated 15 to 20 percent less asparagus on his 15 hectares due to lack of demand. The crisis hits him even harder than the industry as a whole. In retail in particular, things did not go well in April and May. The decline also affects the seasonal workers who come to Nestler every year from Eastern Europe. “In a normal season we have 20 to 25 workers from Romania and Poland. Now there are only 15 left, the others I had to lay off.”
And the prognosis? On Friday, the Bundestag decided to increase the minimum wage, which will rise from EUR 9.82 to EUR 12 by October. The asparagus farmer Nestler is one of those in the country who see less of an opportunity to become more attractive for workers and more of the danger of no longer being competitive. His production costs would increase by an estimated 25 percent, he says. “How are we supposed to keep up with the competition from abroad?” Low-cost providers from the south export the vegetables to Germany, and the green asparagus, which is sometimes offered for four euros, is already a nuisance for farmers in this country. “You can’t blame consumers and appeal to reason,” says Nestler. “If you don’t have the money, you don’t look for fair trade.”
Now, at the end of the harvest season, he’s trying to see something positive from the whole thing: “It’s a burden for all of us, yes. But asparagus is a great vegetable.” It is a perennial herb whose rootstock overwinters in the ground. So asparagus is not planted anew every year. “If we now let the asparagus plant grow out instead of cutting it, it can recover.” The next year, the white tips grew even more beautifully and better. “Then we can start all over again.”