ED FAGAN is rueing his custom-built asparagus shed is not doing its thing in the middle of October at Mulyan Farm, near Cowra on the banks of the Lachlan River.
It's a good machine. Its optical graders take eight photographs of each spear, they are rotated and scanned for any imperfection, and diameter and length measured. It can gauge an asparagus spear according to 21 programmable parameters.
Now would normally be peak asparagus harvest time and the paddocks would be full of workers.
Yet, on October 14 there was just two of us (the author and Ed) and we sampled a spear each.
It tasted like snow peas and begged the question: why cook it?
"Asparagus must be cut every day", said Mr Fagan, pointing at three spears of varying lengths.
"That's today's, that one will be tomorrow and that new one will be cut in two days time."
Sounds simple enough, but when you've got 30,000 crowns to the hectare, each producing at least one spear daily spread over 30 hectares you're talking about a big job when it comes to cutting.
That's why it takes a lot of people to harvest and move fresh spears to the cool of the shed fast and at the best time of the day.
This year, the usual casual workforce of backpackers is simply not available because of COVID-19 travel restrictions.
There would generally be as many as 30 cutters in the field.
Instead, the crop is not being harvested and has been left to 'fern'.
Mr Fagan says while not ideal, the crown will come back stronger next year and cared for will do so for decades.
From an ideal harvest point of 22 degrees Celsius, the next aim is to bring the spears' temperature down to 4 degrees fast.
It's moved to a cool shed and washed at 3 degrees for four-and-a-half minutes.
Each spear is then moved to its own cup and conveyed for scanning, it's then photographed and graded into one of four quality categories.
"There seems to be a perception that the really fine, thin asparagus is best quality, what its size really means is the crown is weak, I don't eat the thin stuff," said Mr Fagan.
"The top restaurants want spears as thick as my thumb."
Asked about consumers' knowledge of vegetables and quality generally, the 2015 NSW Farmer of the Year winner said while people were getting to know more about what they were buying, education was at a low ebb.
Beetroot is coming out of the paddock and straight onto the grading table for 'production' at Mulyan Farm.
It's also steam blanched at the shed, sliced, diced, brined, whatever the customer wants.
"We've vertically integrated the beetroot business," said Mr Fagan, standing at the edge of a paddock that is near ready for harvest.
The entire paddock will be harvested at once and then graded.
The biggest will be destined for slicing, the mean for premium-quality product and the baby beets each treated individually.
The beets are processed every couple of days and are the mainstay of the farming operation, at the moment.
Mr Fagan constantly adjusts his business model to mesh with the business and physical environment.
"From 2010 to 2015 were good years," he said. "From 2016 until now, agriculturally its been very different. We've had flood, drought and outside factors that affect the business model.
"Everyone was affected by the drought, irrigators too, so 2017, '18, '19 we had drought, then came coronavirus, then the trade spat with China.
"Every year has been very different, it's been hard to plan."
Mr Fagan points to a paddock of Planet barley as he explained that making hay served the business well during the drought.
"We made the best cereal hay we've ever made from Planet. Everyone we sold it to said it was the best hay of the season."
A lot of the barley ended up locally at sheep feedlots.
On the horticultural front, the emphasis is on less labour, hence beetroot coming to the fore, which can be mechanically harvested.
Most of the beetroot from Mulyan Farm goes to VegCo for vaccuum packing and Three 3s for baby beetroot and sliced beet in glass jars. Numerous other processors take the rest.
Now though, attention is turned to the next audit.
"The food safety audit is the most important, but really we could have someone working full-time preparing for the next audit, it's a demanding regime."
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