An aspharagus plant

Walking the fields of talo Giribaldi. He is a larger Peruvian farmer.

Italo Giribaldi talks to Kansas farmers.

Workers process grapes at Italo Giribaldi's farm. These grapes will be used for domestic use.

Italo Giribaldi talks at one of his asparagus fields.

I detest most greens, I admit.

Friday, however, I was excited to be one of 12 from our Kansas Agriculture and Rural Leadership group of 30 to tour an asparagus and mango processing plant.

I donned a white jacket, a mask and a hair net, along with a pair of white boots as farmer Italo Giribaldi showed of his investment.

The days started off at Giribaldi's farm. He's one of Peru's larger farmers. Giribaldi grew up on a large poultry farmer and his father owned a textile plant. He went to college to be an engineer but upon graduation, returned to the farm and made it bigger.

He's been successful and Giribaldi is well-to-do, especially considering about 35 percent of Peruvians live off of $3 a day. His 700-plus-acre expanse includes avocados, mangos and other citrus, along with passion fruit. He has several hundred workers on his own farm, and more depending on the season. His plantation includes large buildings for processing fruit for the domestic market, along with a lunch room where workers can buy a hot lunch for one sols, or roughly 50 cents.

But the 38-year-old says diversification is key, especially in Peru. He was one of four to invest in a packing plant called Fruchincha, which does about $45 million a year total in business, with asparagus equally about $8 to $10 million of the total.

Much of the product packaged here goes across the globe, Giribaldi said. The plant's largest importer typically is the United States, which purchases both asparagus, mangos and avocados, he said.

The plant, built in 1986, is one of the oldest processors in the Chincha area. It supplies largely for the fresh produce market, as well as the canned and frozen markets. The better market is the fresh market, he said, and he prefers to try to do all fresh, if possible. However, poorer quality asparagus is canned for the domestic market.

In March, the plant was processing about 5 tons a day. It can process anywhere from that to about 60 tons a day, he said. He didn't allow pictures, but I saw the entire process, which including washing an chilling the asparagus, then sorting and eventually boxing it. Boxes of freshly picked asparagus in the cooler this day where heading to U.S. Walmart stores, he said.They'll be flow there and from the time it's harvested to the time it goes to the store shelves is less than a week.

All told, the company operates 3,000 hectors to supply the plant, with about 1,800 in production and another 200 to be developed next year.

It was all impressive, including the quality control (cleanness and precaution), as well as just watching a product go from farm to fork.

Yes, I did try asparagus. It was OK. I tried mangos, too. They were wonderful.