While eating my chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant last week in New Mexico I came across one of those informational brochures on the table that further illustrates the lackluster opinion our elected leaders have of American agriculture and why we’re destined to lose much more than a vital American industry if we don’t put the brakes on fast.
According to the New Mexico Chile Association the New Mexico chile industry is in steep decline thanks to foreign competition that is raising chile peppers cheaper than it costs to grow them here. Sound familiar?
Since the height of New Mexico’s chile production in 1992, when 34,500 acres of chiles were harvested, that acreage has dropped to around 11,000 acres. While China is trying to corner the oleoresin market — oleoresin is a natural plant product — Mexican companies are taking advantage of reduced regulations and cheap labor to steal the US market share of green chili. All this, plus competition from other foreign nations, has led to a dramatic drop in the domestic production of chile peppers.
Why is this important? Because American phytosanitary regulations are why consumers here have such high confidence in American-produced agricultural goods. American agriculture is also why this country remains sovereign, though President Obama is working hard to cede our sovereignty to other nations by selling our debt to nations such as China, but I digress.
Moreover, American-grown chiles have scored better in taste tests, particularly those from the Hatch, NM area, and in restaurant surveys than foreign-grown chiles. Ironically, the consumption of chile peppers in the United States has increased, according to the New Mexico Chile Association, while we continue to decrease our domestic production.
We need to protect our domestic food source from foreign competition through all means necessary. We have very little domestic oil production right now and look where that’s got us! The catastrophe awaiting us if we cede our food production to third-world nations with little to no food safety regulations will literally kill us.
Hi Mr. Pearce: This is exactly the kind of thinking we need to see. Why, you ask is our chili industry going downhill? It is, as you explain, a direct result of Congressional insanity that accepts the idea that our way of life is not worth protecting at all . Those cheap chilis, it seems, are burning us all the way down. I enjoyed greatly seeing an article that all should read about what is happening in New Mexico. People should worry about their jobs.
People should not be surprised at a 10% plus unemployment rate. When our country lets companies move overseas, take advantage of low labor and low production costs, then resell their product in the U.S. for a cheaper price than their competitors in the U.S., something is definitely wrong. Keep up the good fight. Scott Lafon
Point of correction:
Steve Pearce did not write this. I did. It is my intellectual property. His campaign lifted this blog for his campaign site without permission. His campaign later corrected the issue after I contacted them and requested it either be removed or that credit to the author was made prominent on his campaign website.