U.S. ASPARAGUS PRODUCTION HURT BY WAR ON ILLEGAL DRUGS

TOPPENISH, Wash. - After 55 years of packing Eastern Washington
asparagus, the Del Monte Foods factory here moved operations to Peru
last year, eliminating 365 jobs.

As the global economy churns, nearly every sector has a story about
U.S. jobs landing on cheaper shores. But what happened to the U.S.
asparagus industry is rare, farmers here say, because it became a
casualty of the government's war on drugs.

To reduce the flow of cocaine into the U.S. by encouraging farmers in
Peru to grow food instead of coca, the United States in the early
1990s started to subsidize the Peruvian asparagus industry, and since
then U.S. processing plants have closed and hundreds of farmers have
folded.

"We've created this booming asparagus industry in Peru, resulting in
the demise of a century-old industry in America," said Alan Schreiber,
director of the Washington Asparagus Commission. "And I've yet to hear
anyone from the government tell me with a straight face that it has
reduced the amount of cocaine coming into this country."

Here in Washington, about 17,000 acres have been plowed under since
1991, a 55 percent decline in acreage. In Michigan, the value of the
industry is down 35 percent.

During the same period, Peruvian asparagus exports to the United
States have grown to 110 million pounds from 4 million pounds.

"The irony is that they didn't plow under the coke to plant asparagus
in Peru," said John Bakker, executive director of the Michigan
Asparagus Advisory Board. "Coca leaf is grown in the highlands. The
asparagus is near sea level."

In a letter to the State Department in March, Peru's government said
the asparagus industry employed 50,000 people, 40 percent of whom came
from coca-producing regions.

Yet U.S. auditors, in a 2001 report to Congress, said the Foreign
Agricultural Services "does not believe that Peruvian asparagus
production provides an alternative economic opportunity for coca
producers and workers."

Bakker said about 300 farmers in his state had lost a total of $25
million because of the imports.

"There are certainly social benefits from trying to curb cocaine
production, but why should one industry take it on the chin for it?"
Bakker said.