New Mexico Chile Association executive director Kari Dominguez speaks with KRWG Multimedia Journalist Noah Raess about the health of the chile industry. From a peak of about 35,000 acres in the 1990's to about 9,000 in recent years, according to Source New Mexico, chile acreage has dropped sharply due to a few factors.
Noah Raess:
What do you guys do at the New Mexico Chile Association?
Kari Dominguez:
So the New Mexico Chile Association is an association that was designed to help back the chile industry in a way. I'm the executive director so I do like the day to day accounting, things like that. But we also do marketing. We have cost share programs for our members. We have a lobbyist that helps fight out legislation. We are obviously dedicated to preserving, promoting and supporting the Chile industry. We include growers, processors, restaurants, distributors, manufacturers, kind of anybody within the chile industry. We work alongside them, to bring them in as members. One of our key things and one of our key programs is in New Mexico Certified Chile. And this helps, identify and promote chile that's grown in New Mexico and keep it authentic and, that way, our consumers know that they're getting New Mexico certified chile.
Noah Raess:
I was doing a little bit of research before this interview and chile acreage has dropped pretty significantly from 1990. I guess can you kind of walk us through why there has been less chile acreage farming in New Mexico?
Kari Dominguez:
So we've seen the drop, and a lot of it is like production costs. Of course. And water availability. So water over the years we've also seen has become a scarce resource for chile farmers because we're having to compete for irrigation water. And, with that happening, you know, people are having to put drip systems in which is increasing the cost of production. There's been labor shortages, which also has increased the cost of production because they're having to hire through H-2a workers. And, sometimes it might be more expensive to do that than it is to hire local workers. So finding labor has been a problem as well. But really, it's just, production cost and the challenges that we face. And then also, competition with some of our different countries around us, like Mexico that we import from and having the competition there. So, just slowly starting to see a drop off of farmers and it's, I wouldn't say it's necessarily like large farmers that we're seeing the drop off of. It's more these smaller growers that just couldn't afford the cost of production anymore.
Noah Raess:
One big piece of water news that came up this year was the Texas New Mexico settlements. How has that affected chile farmers?
Kari Dominguez:
Already having to battle, the amount of water availability and in New Mexico. And so with this, it's just made it a little bit harder. Pretty much means that we lost 18,000 acre feet of water. And so a lot of what we're having to do is these drip irrigation systems. And so they're having to, you know, put water wells in, and then you have all the cost associated with that. If you're using a gas or diesel engine to pump it or electric, whatever it may be, you're having that cost on top of it. And so a lot of our farmers have switched over to get the irrigation already. It's more efficient in practice and not having to rely on the irrigation systems. And so it helps guarantee that they'd have enough water for their operation.
Noah Raess:
Where do you see the chile industry going in the future?
Kari Dominguez:
I see the chile industry maintaining and staying the same. I don't think it'll ever fall off because chili is an iconic crop for this state. It's a specialty crop. And I think if anything, we're going to keep pushing as the association to push to keep our growers involved and keep them going and try to help out here and there, like such in the marketing cost and to help them, I mean, promote their businesses, whatever it may be, as well as lobbying for anything that, might hurt them or something that may benefit them in legislation. And so, we just see it staying pretty consistent. So hopefully, hopefully that stays the same and maybe we can get it to increase eventually.
