Hard Times for a Hot Commodity, the Prized New Mexico Chile

“It’ll keep you up at night to worry about the weather,” said Tyler Holmes, 35, who intends to take over part of the farm from her father, Harvey Morrow.

In the 1980s, Morrow Farms planted hundreds of acres of chiles, but Ms. Holmes’s uncle John, another owner, stopped planting chiles on his section 10 to 15 years ago. He doubts he will plant any next year; watermelons are just better for business.

Ms. Holmes and her father still plant chiles, but only on about 80 acres of the 1,200 they irrigate. They mostly sell to people in town who like their product.

“We talked about not growing it, but that’s not possible,” she said. “It’s who we are.”

Other families, like the Franzoys and the Grajedas, are still holding strong, expanding their operations and breeding new varieties.

Ms. Rutherford, the chile queen, demands it: She watched her father, Joseph Franzoy, start with just two acres, and picked chile for 10 cents a bushel with her first husband, Jim Lytle, during World War II. In his honor, she bred the Big Jim variety, one of New Mexico’s most popular.

But even as she sat at her dining room table wearing the plastic crown, she worried those days might be over.

“Do you think any of our kids are going to carry on the legacy?” she asked. “Why should they come and farm if they can’t make a living?”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/dining/hatch-chiles-new-mexico.html?emc=rss&partner=rss