Lawmakers’ overreach killing New Mexico chile industry
The New Mexico chile is the heart and soul of our state’s culture and the state’s iconic agricultural commodity. For the past two decades, the New Mexico chile industry has warned us about the decline of the industry, but it has fallen on deaf ears. During the 1990s, the New Mexico chile harvest hovered over 34,000 acres, but fast forward to 2021, and that acreage has decreased drastically to just 8,700 acres. This decrease has been caused primarily by manmade issues through policy development in Santa Fe.
My name is Glen Duggins and I am the owner of Cinco Estrella Chili and president of the New Mexico Chile Association. I recently announced I will no longer be growing chile. My chile is well known in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and across the entire state. In fact, most of you have probably enjoyed eating my chile in restaurants in northern New Mexico. Year after year, I have promoted New Mexico as the chile capital of the world and worked to ensure we retain our chile culture in the state. However, I can no longer do so.
The mandates coming out of Santa Fe have made it too difficult and expensive for me to grow chile in our state. These mandates have killed my business and killed the opportunity for New Mexicans to enjoy Cinco Estrella chile.
I am not alone. Our industry in recent years has seen at least three family-owned processors sell or shut their doors, leaving only a handful of farmers growing chile at any volume. Unfortunately, consumers are more likely to be eating chile grown in Mexico, where worker protection and food safety are not priorities.
Our industry continues to plead with lawmakers that we cannot sustain new environmental regulations or policies that increase the cost of doing business in New Mexico. We strive to produce and process the world’s greatest chile, while always considering the cost of products to consumers. However, we are at a tipping point. Continued over-regulatory policies at the state and federal levels will result in our farmers harvesting less chile, forcing our processors to purchase chile in Mexico. Our New Mexico chile industry is worth saving, but we need policies that allow our farmers to do what they do best — farm. We need policies that allow our processing businesses to grow and provide New Mexico chile products that are affordable for consumers.
Our industry understands the good intentions of the Legislature in its desire to provide medical paid leave for employees, look for cleaner fuel standards and increase minimum wage. However, we can no longer become casualties of those good intentions. Legislation proposed this session is putting more nails in the coffin for New Mexico chile.
I am disappointed every year hearing lawmakers promote New Mexico chile, and supporting bills that create a state aroma and a state song, but those bills do not help our industry. We need laws coming out of Santa Fe that protect our industry, not ones that kill our greatest cultural icon.
A “chile story” is a memory or moment in one’s life of enjoying our state’s signature crop. The New Mexico Chile Association believes every New Mexican deserves to have a chile story.