The Asparagus Boom: How Kennewick’s Green Gold Conquered the Market
Local dealers are overwhelmed by demand for Kennewick asparagus, with prices surging and supply falling short. Farmers warn that while the crop is plentiful, the quality of local 'grass' is driving a frenzy among buyers across the West.
THERE IS BRASS Price of Local Product Strengthens and Dealers Are Unable to Supply the Demand
Kennewick asparagus is on the run. Not in retreat, but in a charge to the front. There is a big demand for the local product and within the last week the f.o.b. Kennewick prices have advanced ten cents a box, and dealers are still unable to fill their orders.
"We have quit sending out quotations and soliciting orders for asparagus and at that we have been compelled to cut our orders in half," said Chas. H. Collins, of the Kennewick Fruit Exchange today. "We have been shipping about 150 boxes a day but if we could get the grass we could, without special effort, be marketing from 400 to 500 boxes."
The Kennewick product is heading the price quotations in every market it has entered this year and everywhere we have received 'follow-up orders. In many instances where we have shipped one dealer in a town, we have received orders the next day from his competitors who want the same kind of stuff.
The prevailing market conditions are not abnormal. The brisk demand is not due to any marked shortage of the crop this year. There are plentiful offerings of California and Walla Walla asparagus but the quality of the local grass brings it to the front. The crop offers great possibilities and our farmers could grow it by the hundreds of acres and still not over-supply the demand.
This 1914 report on the 'asparagus boom' highlights how early agricultural specialization in the Tri-Cities area created a volatile, high-demand market that relied heavily on quality differentiation against competitors like California. Today, Kennewick remains an agricultural powerhouse, but the dynamic has shifted from a scarcity-driven price surge to a global supply chain where local branding and sustainability are key to maintaining value.
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