About 250 workers from Vanuatu will start arriving in Australia in coming weeks to harvest Victorian asparagus crops by hand.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 3 minutes 54 seconds 3 m 54 s Australian Asparagus Council president James Terry talks about the challenges and opportunities in his industry ( Laura Poole ) Download 7.2 MB

As the weather begins to warm up, soil temperature rise bringing asparagus crowns to life at Koo Wee Rup, in west Gippsland, where most of the nation's asparagus is grown.

The industry is one of the major users of the Federal Government's Seasonal Worker Program.

The new president of the Australian Asparagus Council, James Terry, said as the industry grew, finding enough labour became increasingly difficult.

"It's a huge challenge for us as an industry to make sure that we are doing the right thing," he said.

"We speak about it at our meetings and we are doing the right thing and we put everything in place to ensure that we are protecting ourselves and protecting the industry."

Many asparagus farmers around Koo Wee Rup are repairing farmhouses for their Pacific Island employees to live in. Under the Federal Government's program, farmers are required to provide accommodation.

Mr Terry said asparagus was one of the most labour intensive horticultural crops.

"It varies from paddock to paddock, but roughly speaking one person can harvest four to five acres themselves, on a daily basis," he said.

"There's a lot of labour involved to cut all the acres involved in the industry now. We also require a lot of labour in the packing shed. While we are using computer-assisted grading, there's still a lot of manual jobs in the packing shed as well."

Asparagus industry grows

Mr Terry has taken over from asparagus farmer Joe Vizzari as head of the Australian Asparagus Council.

The council represents 99 per cent of Australian asparagus production, with most members from Koo Wee Rup, but some growers from Mildura too.

Mr Terry works for Momack Produce, one of the country's largest asparagus producers. He also bought his own asparagus farm, which comes into full production this year.

He said it was exciting to work in an industry that was growing year on year.

"The domestic market is growing at a considerable rate. People are trying to push and grow local asparagus for longer, which means consumers can have it on their plate for a longer proportion of the year," he said.

"Asparagus is seen as a modern and trendy vegetable which people like and the next generation consumer is putting it on their plate on a more regular basis."