On Thursday, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that New Mexico will put $5 million toward a wage supplement program administered by the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, called the Chile Labor Incentive Program, for the chile industry due to a labor shortage.
This program will provide funding, taken from the state’s share of the American Rescue Plan, to “chile growers, labor contractors and processors on a first-come, first-served basis to supplement the wages of existing and prospective workers as well as incentivize hiring and retention,” according to a press release put out by the office of the governor on Thursday. The average wage for farmers currently sits at $15.23 an hour according to a May 2021 USDA report, but these funds could raise that to $19.50 an hour for those that receive the incentive funds.
“New Mexico chile is beloved the world over, and of course at dinner tables on every street in every community in our state,” Gov. Lujan Grisham said in the press release. “It is an all-important symbol of New Mexican agriculture and commerce. I will do everything in my power to support the industry in their efforts to harvest and process a successful 2021 crop. Our economic recovery depends on thriving industries in every corner of New Mexico. We have committed substantial state resources to support that recovery and those industries, and chile will be no exception.”
According to the press release, the New Mexico Chile Association says the industry may be short of over 1,300 seasonal employees.
“There’s a small window where chile can be picked fresh green and when you don’t have enough people picking it starts drying and aging and going into red chile out in the field,” Joram Robbs, Executive Director of the NM Chile Association, told KRQE.
While Republicans have claimed that New Mexico’s unemployment benefits due to the COVID-19 pandemic are the cause for the shortage in workers, Milan Simonich with the Santa Fe New Mexican reported that it’s an ongoing historical trend relating to the agonizing physical work required in the field. He also noted that this has been occurring long before Donald Trump’s presidency and the pandemic, which has been the cause of blame in the labor shortage for some.
“Forget for a moment about Trump, his wall and the pandemic,” Simonich wrote. “American workers have had no interest in picking chile for at least 50 years, probably much longer. Immigrants who were hungry did the dirty work.”
Megan Gleason is the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at editorinchief@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @fabflutist2716
