Asparagus is not only delicious, but its protein content also makes it the king of vegetables! Spring and summer asparagus is tender and fresh, and green asparagus has twice the vitamin C of white asparagus.

Text and photos by Chelagu

Blanch, chill in ice water, drizzle with sauce - simple steps, just a few minutes, and a refreshing dish is already on the table. Spring and summer is the best time to savor asparagus. Asparagus is rich in nutrients with fine fibers, and with the title of "king of vegetables," plus its sweet, crisp and delicious texture, whenever the season comes around, chefs everywhere compete to develop new dishes, both innovating and pursuing the preservation of asparagus's original flavor. The ones who benefit are still the vast crowd of gourmands.

The asparagus commonly found on the market is mainly white asparagus and green asparagus. In fact, their difference comes only from exposure to sunlight. The young shoots harvested before they break through the ground are white asparagus, and once they grow above the ground and turn green through photosynthesis, they become green asparagus.

Taiwan's asparagus-producing areas are mainly in the coastal townships of the southwest, with Changhua, Yunlin and Tainan all being major asparagus-growing centers. Among them, the sandy soil of Jiangjun District in Tainan City has good drainage and high salinity, and in addition to traditional open-field cultivation, greenhouse cultivation techniques have also been developed in recent years. Not only does the flavor of the white asparagus rival that of imported French asparagus, but the quality of the green asparagus is also quite outstanding, and both have made their way into upscale hotels and restaurants.

The farmers' association focuses on "Red General," a dual guarantee of reputation and quality

The asparagus fields of Jiangjun District in Tainan County cover about forty hectares, with an annual output of about 960 metric tons and a production value reaching NT$120 million. Five years ago, the Jiangjun District Farmers' Association began contract farming and marketing of asparagus, guiding farmers to obtain traceability certification, matching them with restaurant channels. Consumers can purchase high-quality Jiangjun asparagus through the A-Mart hypermarket, and the Dian Shui Lou restaurant is also a long-term client of the farmers' association.

Walking into the farmers' association's work area, the whiteboard on the left clearly marks the total weight received each day, while directly ahead is a Japanese-imported grading machine. Workers smoothly feed in the asparagus, and the conveyor belt moves it to the cutting station at a rate of three stalks per second. Then the asparagus enters the most precise part of the entire machine, the weighing area, and is sorted and dropped according to the settings in the computer unit. Further back are the staff who organize, weigh and package, with all processes handled entirely by the farmers' association's employees. During the peak production season from March to June each year, the staff of the Jiangjun Farmers' Association take turns manning the line in addition to their daily duties.

Harvesting must begin in the middle of the night in the fields, entirely by hand

Asparagus is a perennial root crop. After seedling cultivation, it takes about half a year of farming before harvesting can begin, and with proper management, it can be harvested for many years after a single planting, making it a high-economic-value crop. However, the hardest part is also the harvesting. The hours before dawn are when asparagus grows fastest, so around three o'clock, farmers must grope their way into the asparagus fields in the dark and harvest stalk by stalk by hand. When production is large, they may even need to start as early as midnight and keep harvesting until the sun comes up.

Asparagus cannot be picked directly, as this would damage the root crown. A sickle must be used to cut straight down into the soil, and the cutting motion must not be too large and should have a small range. For one thing, care must be taken not to cut too deep and damage the root crown; for another, the cut must not be too slanted, or it may slice into nearby asparagus that has not yet emerged from the soil. This harvesting work, done entirely by hand, continues for 4 months straight, while the harvest period for greenhouse asparagus is extended to 9 months.

The crop Jiangjun Township was best known for in the past was carrots. Carrots established a stable agricultural system for the area. Although the soil salinity is relatively high, farmers were still able to develop a stable and diverse agricultural system, including gourd vegetables such as angled luffa, spiny cucumber, bitter gourd and watermelon, as well as burdock, sweet corn, rice and more. In the past, the Jiangjun Farmers' Association used the red tones of major crops such as carrots, red-fleshed dragon fruit and cherry tomatoes to create a brand named "Red General" in its fresh produce department. After entering asparagus contract farming, the "Red General" brand name was continued, creating an interesting contrast and production lineage between red and green.

Lin Yen-liang, director of the extension department, pointed out that Jiangjun asparagus is of good quality and popular in the market, but the farmers' association's main function focuses on providing farmers with reasonable profits and stabilizing the purchase prices offered by wholesalers. For young farmers, it tends to encourage them, once their techniques are stable, to move toward joint marketing together with other farming friends, build their own brands and open up more possibilities.