New Mexico chile production continues decline

Posted at: 09/19/2009 9:51 PM | Updated at: 09/21/2009 7:39 AM
By: Valerie Castro, Eyewitness News 4; Charlie Pabst, KOB.com

It's an industry that many New Mexicans couldn't imagine being without, but chile production continues to fall while the state's farmers deal with labor shortages and outside competition.

Despite the gloomy future, chile experts say the slow economy bought them some extra time this year while they figure out a way to pump up production on the state's most famous export.

The state's chile production has been falling since the early 1990s, when the cheap labor that was used to pick the crop found better-paying construction jobs.

With the dour economy, that flipped this year, but it's only buying the industry a little extra time until they figure out a way to replace cheap labor with a mechanical solution.

Some argue that it wouldn't be New Mexico without the red or green, but industry experts say it's a scenario that could come sooner rather than later while chile prices climb and production falls.

New Mexico Chile Association Spokeswoman Jaye Hawkins said Saturday, "You would see more expensive chile here in New Mexico. You might even see the demise of the entire industry if the production or the harvest numbers drop much more than they already have. I think you're probably looking at a complete loss for the industry in the state of New Mexico."

The association says that production is affected by labor shortages, but as people lost high-paying construction jobs in the bad economy, many workers returned to the fields to make extra money picking chile.

The race is on to perfect mechanical pickers before the economy bounces back.

Many were tested this year, but finding a machine to de-stem the green chile is putting a hold on the labor solution.

"When you pick chile manually that happens automatically, the people that are picking the chile also take the stems off," Hawkins said.

If the technology is perfected in time, New Mexico might be able to hold on to its prized crop.

Hawkins said, "I think if that happens then we have a lot to look forward to in terms of having people that perhaps got out of growing chile in the state, back into growing chile -- and we can increase our acreage that way."

The Chile Association says other things that have affected production include disease and immigration reform that could bring people in to the state to hand-harvest.

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