The cultivation of this product represents an income of 7,000 million pesos and produces more than 25,000 jobs in BCS; however, it is no longer profitable to harvest any more.
In the Santo Domingo Valley, in Comondú, is the second most important asparagus crop in the country, with 7,500 hectares, where between 800 to 1,000 boxes of 5 kilos per 10,000 meters are harvested, generating 25,000 direct jobs; this season only went out for production costs, due to the effects of COVID, said the Secretary of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Agricultural Development (Sepada), José Alfredo Bermúdez Beltrán.
“The most important asparagus area is located in the Santo Domingo Valley, there are 7,500 hectares, it is the second most important area in our country, surpassed only by the area of Caborca, Mexicali, which has 12,000 hectares,” he said.
The area in Baja California Sur has two important harvest seasons per year, which are from May to June 15 and from September to December 15, and everything that is produced is exported to the United States and from there it is redistributed to Japan, the European Union, England and Canada, informed the Secretary.
“The price oscillates around 15 dollars per box, but the production cost is 15 dollars, so there is no profitability[…] now we are harvesting to recover production costs […]. there was a collapse where the product dropped by more than 50% due to the high production of Peru, which is the country with which we compete at the same harvest date and the market demand dropped due to the effect of COVID, it is a big problem that has brought down the prices of the products”, he said.
With information from BCS Noticias
