Read the
magazine story to find out more.
|
Inspecting chilis
cleaned by the experimental machine are ARS agricultural engineer Ed Hughs and
New Mexico State University extension specialist Stephanie Walker. Click
the image for more information about it. |
Keeping New Mexican Peppers Hot in the World
Market
By Don
Comis February 7, 2005
New Mexico without chili? That's as unthinkable as France without
wine.
But in the late 1990s, global competition threatened to completely
steal the market for the state's cultural icon, the chili pepper. The
New Mexico Chile Task Force was
formed to fight back, using the talents of the chili industry aided by
researchers at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), New
Mexico State University, and the U.S.
Department of Energy's Sandia National
Laboratories.
The Task Force decided that automation would go a long way toward
helping chili peppers become more competitive globally. Chili pepper harvesting
is at about the same stage as cotton harvesting was 50 years ago: mostly
hand-picked.
Ed
Hughs, an agricultural engineer at the ARS
Southwestern
Cotton Ginning Research Laboratory near Las Cruces, N.M., and colleagues
began using their cotton-cleaning experience to invent an automated
pepper-cleaning machine--the Task Force's first priority. The cleaner has been
tested successfully for two harvests.
Chili peppers are often rotated with cotton in New Mexico, eastern
Arizona and western Texas, making Hughs' dual expertise more understandable.
The Southwest produces 90 percent of U.S. chilis and about a third of the
country's cotton.
The Task Force is determined to use the area's available federal,
state and industry expertise to be sure that U.S. and world markets for red
chili, green chili, jalapeno and cayenne peppers continue to generate more than
$400 million a year for New Mexico.
Read more
about this research in the February 2005 issue of Agricultural Research
magazine.
ARS is the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.