I came across this and wondered; why does such a thing exist? Why does the State of Michigan need an asparagus advisory board? We don't have one here in UK. Neither does anywhere else, except California, but they have one of everything. OK, asparagus is good and tasty, but even so. Then I got to wondering how it's funded. Wherever there's an advisory board, there's always a pork barrel. It turns out that the State of Michigan Department of Agriculture paid the Asparagus Advisory Board $52,500 of your money (assuming you're a Michigan taxpayer) to "develop an asparagus salsa product, produce fresh asparagus packaging and to develop a higher quality pickled asparagus product" (PDF file). (Quite apart from anything else, pickled asparagus?) That document shows that the S of M D of A also paid the Michigan Potato Industry Commission $239,400 to "research cultural practices of growing new Michigan potato varieties and the storability of new varieties, and to promote new processing varieties and the new Michigan Purple variety." A quarter of a million dollars? It's small beer in the grand scheme of things, but if no-one looks after the pennies, you'll have a budget deficit before you know it. Trust me, I know about these things; Britain's in the EU.