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By Nicole Maxwell
Whether it is red, green or Christmas, New Mexican cuisine is known for its chile.
HB 172 seeks to establish August as Red and Green Chile Month and was passed unanimously in the House Government Elections and Indian Affairs Committee Feb. 14.
“It’s an important issue for us to bring up, and it’s important for us to promote the culture and this crop,” Rep. Rebecca Dow, R-Truth or Consequences, said. “So New Mexico has a couple of things going on, one of them being an aging population of farmers, and we’re putting a lot of time and investment into getting new producers. Another thing that we have is growing competition for our chile crop outside of the Hatch green chile area… and they’re selling nationwide and around the world.”
In the 1990s, New Mexico had about 34,000 acres of chile harvested and in 2023, that number dropped to 8,800 acres,” New Mexico Chile Association Executive Director Travis Day said at the hearing.
“We typically hover around 85 to 88,000 acres, depending on weather and other issues that we’re facing. But I mean, it does play a pretty significant role. From an economic standpoint, chile is anywhere from about $40 million to $45 million in value each year and creates about 5,000 jobs,” Day said.
There is not much movement into the New Mexico chile industry due to it being a labor-intensive and finicky crop, Day said.
Dow said the bill would also lead to tourism that could include the ability “to have tours of breweries that have green chile in their beer, that wine that is infused with chile, to be able to promote, have a red and green chile tour, whether it’s Mexican food or green chile cheeseburgers, and just to promote the crop in general,” Dow said.
