At Lujan Farms, customers get to ‘see where it’s grown’

LAS CRUCES — Hunched over in their oversized hats and gloves, Raymon and Nina Price weave in and out of rows of chile plants in the morning sunshine, delicately pushing aside branches and targeting their treasure: long, shiny green peppers.

Within an hour, the couple, from nearby Mesilla Valley, has picked two large buckets of the peppers — about 20 pounds.

“I pick all the straight ones. Look how firm and mature they are,” said Nina, proudly smiling while holding several gleaming chiles in her gloved hand.

The couple is among the many customers at Joe Lujan’s “you-pick” farm in Las Cruces, where people have flocked for the past 45 years to hand-pick produce.

Nestled between pecan groves and surrounded by desert, Joe Lujan Farms is 40 acres filled with five varieties of chile as well as squash, okra, onions, tomatoes, jalapeños, cucumbers and a small pecan orchard.

On a recent Saturday morning, the farm was bustling with customers either out in the fields or milling around the farm store, chatting with other customers while waiting for the fruits of their labor to be roasted and packed.

Farmer Joe Lujan, 75, greets each customer with a handshake or hug, asking about their family and health as he makes his way around the store. His wife, Martha, seems to know every person who comes in to register, while farm dogs Buddy and Bandit soak up frequent pats and head scratches.

Besides the friendly conversation and relaxing atmosphere, Lujan said his farm offers customers something they won’t find at a grocery store: freshness and selection.

“They see where it’s grown with their own eyes and pick it with their own hands. They don’t need a sign in a store to tell them how fresh it is,” Lujan said.

And freshness translates to better taste, says Rosalinda Martinez, 55, of Alamogordo, who was picking chile at the farm recently with her two granddaughters. For her family, eating chile is a daily ritual.

“We’ve got to have our chile — it’s our staple,” said Martinez, who buys four 50-pound bags of hot green chile every year.

Lujan said his family started the “you-pick” business model to save on labor costs, which can be especially tough for small farmers.

“When labor got so bad, that’s when we decided to go to this ‘you-pick’ and let people do the labor part, which is the hardest part,” he said.

The farm used to have 100 acres contracted to a food production company in California, but Lujan said he stopped 10 years ago because the company “wouldn’t pay us what we needed to break even and make a little money.”

Martha Lujan said on average the farm sells roughly 12,000 pounds of chile per acre, with most sales generated through word of mouth and repeat customers.

The Prices are among the many customers who come to the farm religiously. They’ve come to the farm annually and pick chile several times a week during the season, which typically runs from mid-July to the end of October.

“We think it’s worth the effort to pick your own chile. And looking at it from the ‘green’ angle, we don’t have to use our own water, since we used to try and grow our own,” Raymon Price said.

New Mexico has a small number of “you-pick” farms across the state, offering customers everything from apples to raspberries to pumpkins.

Most successful “you-pick” farms are located near large cities, offer more than one commodity and have staggered plantings in order to keep a steady flow of customers, says Terry Crawford, an agricultural business professor with New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. Crawford said less than 5 percent of the chile production in New Mexico goes into the fresh market, including the peppers sold at commercially grocery stores. The majority of the chile acreage in the state is contracted out to processing plants.

“With ‘you-pick’ farms, you solve the labor problem, but having to maintain a flow of customers will affect your yield, and farmers run the risk of overmature fruits or vegetables. Plus there’s a high rate of loss from inexperienced pickers.

In addition to several chile roasting and packing employees, Lujan has hired a small crew of chile pickers to harvest the fields regularly to avoid sacrificing his yields. This allows the farm to sell already picked chile and vegetables to customers who’d rather not venture into the field.

Rains and a cool spring caused the start of this year’s harvest to be delayed by several weeks. Then more storms moved into the area just before Labor Day, destroying 15 acres of peppers.

“It’s been five years that we haven’t hardly made any money to speak of,” Lujan said. “Every chile farmer is cutting down every year. It’s just too expensive and labor is high.”

Despite the hardships, Lujan says he stays in the farming business because of tradition and those closest to his heart.

Joe and Martha’s youngest daughter, Lucinda, her husband, Amado Rivas, and their daughter, Amanda, live and work on the farm. Joe said anytime he gets discouraged, he remembers how much his grandchildren enjoy the farm.

“Farming is a family tradition. My father grew cantaloupes when he came to his farm. It’s like asking an alcoholic why they drink. Who knows?” said Lujan with a modest chuckle. “It’s really for them.”