Chile harvest season is wrapping up across the Southwest, and as consumers add chile to their traditional foods this holiday season, growers are hoping that technology could soon help with workforce shortages.In New Mexico, Chile is part of the state’s identity…so much that the official state question is: “Red or Green?”
Every year, New Mexicans rejoice as chile harvest season arrives, and as this season comes to a close, growers are hoping to find some answers to meet labor shortages plaguing the industry.
Dino Cervantes, President of the New Mexico Chile Association, says the industry has been shrinking in the state.
“We just continue to have problems here, they are not improving, and our acreage is reflecting that. This year, we don’t have the final numbers, but roughly about 7,000 acres of Chile were grown this year, you compare that to the mid 90s when 35,000 acres of Chile were grown in the state, during the same time period, and really that’s all related to labor.”
The industry faces an aging workforce, and also less interest in manual labor jobs and rural living often required for harvesting. Chile growers here are hoping that mechanical harvesting may offer some relief, and provide incentive for growers to expand acreage.
Cervantes says almost all Red Chile in the state is mechanically harvested. But the state’s famous Green Chile still depends on harvesting by hand.
“The mechanical harvesting isn’t quite there yet. You have the breeding, and the harvesting that have to be married together.”
There is one harvesting machine that Cervantes says shows promise. Its designer is Israeli engineer, Elad Etgar. Etgar has spent part of this harvest season testing his machine near Hatch, New Mexico known as the “Chile Capital of The World,” and also in Arizona, where he says the labor demand is even stronger.
“Red pepper-It’s harvested no problem, it’s stripped perfect, and very low percent is left on the ground. The challenge is on the Green Chile, to harvest gently and close to the ground, and not pull the plant from the ground.”
Earlier this harvest season, researchers in Los Lunas, New Mexico tested one of Etgar’s smaller mechanical harvesters on different varieties of Green Chile plants. Stephanie Walker, Extension Vegetable Specialist with New Mexico State University, led the research to find out which varieties work the best.
“One thing that has immediately jumped out at us is the varieties that have a lot of basal branches. Those are very low-lying, lateral branches where you get the main fruit set starting on a plant. If we have a lot of basal branches on the plant the picking mechanism are catching the basil branches and uprooting those plants.”
Walker says humans will always be able to do a better job harvesting a plant, but she says something should be in place when the hands are not available.
“It’s just a huge loss to the grower if he can’t get the fruit out of the field somehow. Another possibility is second pick (Green Chile). Let those hand crews go through and get that first pick and then when the plants regenerate the second pick, I think this machine would be optimum for doing a second pick on Green Chile plants.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOovKA1XPmQ&feature=youtu.be
Finding the answers to mechanically harvesting Green Chile is important to the industry and the state. The New Mexico Chile Association says the industry provides over 4,000 jobs and contributes millions each year to the state’s economy. President, Dino Cervantes says they remain hopeful that mechanical harvesting for Green Chile is close to a reality.
“It shows a great deal of promise, we’re hopeful that we’ll have actually a production machine available next year for one of the processors in the state, and incorporate it into their process, it’s one of those things that we’re real close on that.”
Cervantes says growers remain hopeful mechanical harvesting may soon be an option for an industry facing challenges besides labor shortages. There is also stiff foreign competition from Mexico and countries in Southeast Asia that continue to import more and more chile into the United States for a cheaper price
