The poem La guerra de los Chiles[1] by Estevan Arellano and Enrique Lamadrid is a poetic defense of biodiversity, seed sovereignty, and landrace chiles written in the narrative tradition of trovo.[2] It is a debate set up between two personified chiles.[3] First up is Chile Número 10, a chile born through genetic engineering in a lab and meant for mass production. His opponent is El Chimayoso, the chile native to Chimayó, New Mexico. Chimayó chiles are known across the state for having the best sweet and hot flavor due to the unique environmental conditions of the Chimayó region.[4]
In the duel, Chile Número 10 announces himself as coming from a test tube to be found in all the finest stores, industrial kitchens, and commercial salsas.[5] El Chimayoso calls out Chile Número 10 for the destruction he represents for his people. One of the main distinctions between the two is that Chimayó chile is maintained through a relationship with a farmer who saves the seed year after year. He traces this relationship back to his divine origins and his purpose in nourishing his people: “God raised me to spice up / my three sisters / corn, beans, and squash.” Through these mutualistic plantings, there is a reciprocal relationship between other crops, his ancestry, and his seed keeper. In contrast, Chile Número 10 is sterile and must be purchased. He proclaims, “all of the capitalists / are preferring me.”
This poem was performed in 2009 when Vandana Shiva came to visit New Mexico. It was published on a website called Save New Mexico Seeds which represents an organization defending the interests of seed sovereignty for people in New Mexico.
This paper seeks to pick up where La Guerra de los Chiles ends, engaging in the controversy over genetically engineered [GE] chiles in New Mexico and the ways it connects to postcolonial and feminist tensions. First, this paper calls into question the context and processes required to appropriate indigenous knowledge into capitalist structures. Second, the commercial seed industry, which frames these relations, imposes a distinctly patriarchal discourse over the regenerative wisdom held within both landrace seeds and women. This type of genetic engineering emerges as a feminist issue as well. Regenerative wisdom refers not only to women’s ability to carry a child, but rather to the gendered dimension of reproductive labor that many women and seeds embody—growing a baby and growing food, respectively. This definition of regenerative wisdom is not meant to be exclusively female; rather it is a collaborative relationship between all relevant actors. In the case of chiles, the landrace varieties have been passed down over hundreds of years bearing fruit as the result of successful pollination and human cultivation. Genetic engineering undermines this relationship, seeking to impose a capitalist patriarchal homogeny over diverse regenerative agriculture. What follows is an overview of the New Mexico state chile industry and its roots in colonial structures of capitalist accumulation. Using an ecofeminist framework, this paper analyzes current research being applied to genetically engineer chiles and seeks to parse through its gaps. In the spaces which emerge, this paper provides alternative ways of understanding and imagining the chile.
The New Mexico Chile Context
New Mexico is the only state with an official question. The question is “red or green” and it refers to the choice between red chile or green chile. Red and green chile are the same fruit—red chiles are physiologically more mature than their green counterparts.[6] Green ones are roasted and eaten fresh, while red ones are often dried before being utilized. Chile has become an iconic food in New Mexico—I grew up there and remember the festivals and frenzy that went on every Fall as green chiles were being harvested and roasted. There is also a big commercial industry that provides around 15,000 jobs and adds over 400 million dollars to the economy each year.[7] Though not as big as corn or soy in the US, chile consumption has steadily increased since the 1980s. New Mexico grows more chiles than any other US state, and crop acreage also increased with its national rise in popularity until 1992 when state cultivation peaked. Since then, New Mexico chile production dropped off significantly while national demand continued to increase.[8] Now, demand for New Mexico chile is primarily filled by chiles grown in Mexico and China. This demand results from two phenomenon. The first is the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which disrupted the agricultural labor market in the US and reduced the cost of outsourced chile production. Since chiles are generally hand harvested, industrial chile operations require exorbitant amounts of cheap labor. The second reason is that the monocrop system of growing thousands of chile plants per acre makes them vulnerable to disease. Two virulent diseases, phytophthora and beet curly top virus, are plaguing the monocropped fields. They are often introduced by palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri), an edible New Mexican plant which in the context of industrial chile production is considered a weed.[9] These diseases create conditions that require monocrop fields to be treated with herbicides, yet too much herbicide harms the chiles themselves.
Enter genetic engineering, a mechanism being framed as a practical and celebrated solution for both of these seemingly inevitable problems of labor and disease. Current research documents scientists who are attempting to breed a chile which is both mechanically harvestable and glyphosate resistant.[10] [11] As is common with GE crops, breeding is accomplished through a triangular partnership between a biotech company, a university, and a promoter. The fourth silent partner is the government. In this case, Dupont-Dow and Bayer-Monsanto are working with New Mexico State University (NMSU) and the New Mexico Chile Association (NMCA), underpinned by the New Mexico state government.[12]
The NMCA is funding the research at NMSU to breed these commercially desirable varieties. While scientists say the patent will be owned by NMSU, there are no barriers which prevent them from selling the patent to Bayer-Monsanto. Furthermore, the effort to develop a glyphosate resistant chile presupposes a dependence on the herbicide glyphosate (sold as Roundup by Bayer-Monsanto), cementing a potentially rewarding partnership between the university and chemical company. Many GE crops marketed and in use today are Roundup Ready, meaning glyphosate is a required input.[13] In practice this means farmers are able to spray as much herbicide as they want over a field, and all the plants without the engineered resistance will die. Not only has Roundup been linked to pollinator deaths and soil degradation, but studies have linked the carcinogenic chemicals to tumors, kidney failure, and endocrine system disruption in rat mammary glands.[14] Roundup Ready crops on the market currently include soy, corn, rapeseed, alfalfa, cotton, sorghum, and wheat which are high-grossing commodity crops. Chiles compose a comparatively low crop volume within the US. In 2014, the US grew less than 1 million tons of chiles.[15] In contrast, the US grew over 360 million tons of corn.[16] Why, then, is funding the genetic engineering of such a minor ingredient in the national diet economically attractive? Shiva offers a possible answer. Upon a visit to New Mexico, she warned that the genetic engineering of the most culturally iconic plants, such as chiles in New Mexico or eggplants in India, desensitizes people from their resistance to genetic engineering in general, which in turn creates a larger market for all GE crops.[17]
Key to the progress being made on GE chile is the New Mexico Chile Association.[18] The NMCA has funded, either in full or in part, all of the research being published through NMSU on chile genetic engineering. The NMCA, an industry group filed as a nonprofit, opened in 1998 to combat the declining chile production in New Mexico following the NAFTA. The owner of Cervantes Enterprises, the operator of Bueno Foods, and the owner of a largescale conventional chile farm both form the group’s Board of Directors and process the majority of the commercially grown chiles in New Mexico.[19] In 2011, the NMCA introduced the “New Mexico Chile Advertising Act” which stated that it was unlawful to advertise, describe, label, or sell New Mexico chile unless they were actually grown in New Mexico. This bill is enforced through the NMSU’s board of regents, who as patent holders of commercial chile varieties get to define and audit what constitutes legitimate chile. In 2013, an amendment to the act passed as House Bill 238, which prohibits the selling of chiles using the name of “any city, town, county, village, pueblo, mountain, river or other geographic feature or features located in New Mexico.”[20] Across the state, small farmers do not describe their chile as “New Mexican,” but in fact name the chile after the region in which it was grown to reflect the specificity of soil and climate in influencing the flavor.[21] Furthermore, many of these seeds predate the state, which was not inducted into the union until 1912. This amendment effectively criminalizes the Pueblo and Hispanic people’s way of knowing a staple food crop.
Chile’s Colonial Roots
Chile’s commercial importance emerges from its cultural and agricultural significance. Chiles were one of the first plants to be domesticated, with evidence dating chile cultivation to over 9000 years ago in Tamaulipas and Tehaucán, Mexico.[22] Chile is a central food in indigenous Mesoamerican diets and is considered sacred in Inca, Mayan, and Aztec cultures.[23] The normative origin narrative asserts that Spanish Captain General Don Juan De Oñate brought chile seed from Mexico in the 1500s to what is now considered New Mexico when he colonized the Rio Grande. This origin story credits colonizers for introducing chiles into the diets of southwestern Native Americans, and could be invoked as a positive effect of Spanish conquest. Yet, Paul W. Bosland, founder of the NMSU Chile Pepper Institute, writes that the use of chile by Native Americans in the southwestern United States is not as clearly recorded as it is within indigenous Mesoamerican diets. He partially disrupts the theory wherein Oñate was responsible for bringing chiles to the Southwest by citing evidence that the Papago Indians (indigenous to Arizona) used chiles prior to the 1500s. Bosland speculates that Pueblo Indians could have indeed grown chiles, and at the very least, they likely acquired chiles through tribal trade in northern Mexico. He contends that chiles were likely in use by Pueblo people long before they were brought over by the Spanish. He counters, however, when he writes that “we do not know if chiles were cultivated by the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest.”[24] This statement allows the Spanish to remain responsible for Southwestern chile growth.
Perhaps troubling with Bosland’s writing is his general use of “we,” writing that “we do not know…,” from the perspective of an academic institution. By refusing to cite Pueblo Indians living in New Mexico who may in fact know that chiles were grown in New Mexico prior to colonization, Bosland is reinforcing a limited understanding. The narrative which gives Spanish colonizers credit for bringing chile seeds to New Mexico must be questioned because it is very possible, in fact probably much more likely, that indigenous peoples in New Mexico already grew and ate chiles.
Chile is an important crop to indigenous peoples not only for its culinary significance, but for its role in a sacred partnership between people and the earth. Isaura Andaluz, the founder of Cuatro Puertas, an organization that holds the largest collection of native seeds in New Mexico, writes in an essay titled “Celebrating the Chile Nativo”:
Chile is a constant reminder of how intricately we are entwined with the seasons, the land, the river, and our communities. The seeds tether us to the land in an annual ritual planting, harvesting, saving, and sharing, and for some, to ceremonial dances. Passed down for centuries among the Native American and Hispanic people, the seeds are carefully returned to the soil, accompanied with a quiet blessing.[25]
This description is echoed by Hispanic and Pueblo farmers in New Mexico when interviewed in news articles surrounding the GE controversy.[26] Within their chile ontology, there is a clear respect for the life of seed and its embodied connections. Furthermore, farmers understand that research on GE chile ultimately seeks to pollute this understanding. Resistance to GE chile mirrors resistance towards other manifestations of capital accumulation across the US. For example, an Occupy New Mexico Chile movement emerged immediately after the initial GE research went public in 2011, as well as a number of grassroots organizations that worked to defend the rights of Hispanic and Pueblo farmers against corporate agriculture.[27]
In the 1980s, Dr. Fabian Garcia transmogrified chiles out their regenerative environment and into their modern commodity form. His goal was to create a standardized chile with a predictable pod size and level of capsaicin (heat). He accomplished this by breeding three local chile varieties grown by Hispanic and Pueblo gardeners around New Mexico: chile Negro, chile Colorado, and chile Pasilla. Garcia selectively bred “New Mexico No. 9” in 1921, a variety whose dependable size and heat made chiles suitable for mass cultivation, and thus mass consumption.[28]
Garcia is widely credited for laying the groundwork for what would become New Mexico’s 400 million dollar chile industry. He is referred to as the “father” or the “grandfather” of chile.[29] Today, all New Mexican-type chiles come from the genetic base of cultivars developed by Garcia at NMSU. However, his attribution for “improving” local chiles emerges only within a patriarchal capitalist framework.[30] The cultivar he developed was larger, smoother, fleshier, and shoulder-less for commercial canning purposes. Standardization threatened not only flavor but diversity. With the goal of growing as much of one variety as possible, institutional breeding efforts represent work towards homogenizing crops. This contrasts with traditional breeding efforts which are decentralized and support seed diversity to reflect the specific natural environment of the breeders. The chile Chamoyó is just an instantiation, but there are hundreds of others such as Alcade, Cochiti, Dixon, Escondida, and Española. The diversity of genes within landrace chile also increases resilience to environmental stressors. Many varieties do not even have specific names; they are just called “local chile” by farmers.[31] It was this unpredictability and abundance which, in part, prompted Garcia to work towards homogenizing chiles grown around the state. His standardization also reduced capsaicin levels to appeal to an Anglo market and enlarged the chile to appeal to commercial interests.[32] In other words, the standard New Mexico variety became a diluted version of its native ancestors.
In this sense, Garcia’s “improvement” can also be understood as appropriation because thousands of years of traditional chile breeding provided the genetic material for a few varietals grown on a massive scale, credited to one man under one institution. Vandana Shiva and others label this phenomenon “biopiracy,” a neocolonial practice in which indigenous knowledge is regarded as freely available for use by colonizers often for capital accumulation.[33] In the context of India, Mita Banerjee writes about biopiracy and the genealogy of ideas which make it possible. Ultimately, indigenous cultures are understood only as a culture, lacking agency through science or logic.[34] She argues that natives are seen to only use natural products such as turmeric or basmati culturally, and so do not possess the scientific knowledge of “the individual and intentional uses to which these products could be put.”[35] Because native science was once unimaginable to the colonizer, it justifies colonialist science as a way to preserve and exploit natural resources.
At NMSU, Garcia exercised his ability to use scientific knowledge for “individual and intentional use” when he made chiles comply with commercial agriculture. Gracia effectively set a precedent in which the NMSU standardized chile is conflated with “legitimate” science, while the local chile is relegated to native nature—a raw material waiting to be extracted and improved. This precedent has paved the way for patterns of colonial violence against people who grow local chile, in addition to the seeds themselves. Legislation in 2013 criminalizing indigenous names for chile is one example. The way in which laws afford rights of ownership to patent holders, which through crosspollination becomes a tool of control over landrace farming, is another.
A recent paper released by NMSU addresses the state of GM crops in New Mexican agriculture.[36] The paper explains how genetic engineering has been applied to crops and attempts to dispel any concerns surrounding GMOs and the public fear and resistance in adopting this technology. In just one sentence, the report tries to dispel concerns over the transmission of genes from GMOs to non-GMOS arguing that “careful planning by producers, including adequate spacing and the use of border crops, minimizes risk of crosspollination between GMO and non-GMO crop stands and plants.”[37] Such an argument demonstrates the arrogance of biotech research. This privileged and offensive perspective and rhetoric against those who actually stand to lose from crosspollination gives the appearance of neutrality between GM and landrace farmers, without acknowledging the vastly uneven power dynamics that exist between commercial growers and small scale growers. This false claim of objectivity (NMSU is clearly invested in the acceptance of GE crops) disadvantages landrace farmers by placing the burden on them to carefully plan around crosspollination. Furthermore, crosspollination with landrace varieties is also in NMSU’s interest because through patent legislation, they are able to claim ownership over the contaminated seeds. Crosspollination becomes a tool for their own capital accumulation.
Genetically modified chile research has become both an appropriation and a threat to native seed, extending a colonial capitalist worldview. These efforts are unsustainable through a simultaneous dependence on, and destruction of, indigenous ways of life. In other words, this phenomenon is an ill-fated effort. An ecofeminist critique of genetic engineering provides the framework in understanding the unproductive logic implicit in GE chile while pointing us back towards the regenerative wisdom within landrace seeds and their keepers.
Ecofeminist Growth
Helen Forsey understands genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as an attempt at Globalizing Male Omnipotence.[38] She identifies the colonial period as a patriarchal quest of exploration and domination outward, and biotechnology as a tool which has turned the quest inward. The outward quest is a historical reference to the geographical exploration of the colonial period, and serves as an analogy for the way landrace seed genomes are being approached. The inner space of the cell has become the new frontier, and it is full of raw material for more exploration and more domination.
Crop genetic engineering is based on an outdated theory of genetic determinism, also known as the ‘central dogma’ of molecular biology, wherein a single gene is indicative of how a trait comes to be expressed.[39] This tool, in theory, allows breeders to introduce desirable traits or remove undesirable traits in plant varieties in a predictable, faster, and more precise way than traditional breeding. If this were true, however, genetic engineering would be simple; in reality, DNA cannot simply be “edited” on the basis of a single gene expressing one characteristic. This central dogma of DNA has since been disproven with the discovery of epigenetics which understands an organism’s DNA as fluid and intricate in its ability to respond to the environment. Genetics are not a linear, one-way flow of information.[40] Despite this, corporations and universities continue to pour millions of dollars into this faulty science.
Genetic engineering can take many forms; the most controversial procedure is transgenic modification, where a gene from one species is transferred into another unrelated species. A popular example is transferring a fish gene into a tomato for frost prevention, but this modification is often not quite so extreme. For chiles in New Mexico, current research attempts to confer glyphosate resistance. Scientists acknowledge that the public is weary of transgenic modification. In this vein, they are attempting to genetically engineer the crop with an intragenic approach (only involving chile genes), so that it can avoid being labeled as a GMO and fly under GM-resistant radar. Ortega et al. test the feasibility of this intragenic glyphosate resistant chile.[41] Broadly speaking, the process for conferring glyphosate resistance involves mutating a gene within the chile to encode the desired trait. Ironically, in order to prove its efficacy, researchers had to inject the encoded gene into a tobacco plant. Even though the final glyphosate resistant chile seed is not technically transgenic in the sense that it contains genes from an unrelated species, its process of becoming depends on that technology.
GM technology itself is problematic because of the way it imposes a mechanistic worldview on the seed. Ortega et al. write about the chile as generally “recalcitrant”[42] or intransigent to transformation, a challenge that must be overcome. In other words, the chile plant’s natural resistance to genetic modification is framed as something which must be corrected. The scientists accomplish this through a series of induced mutations and gene isolations. In effect, they are disrupting the natural functioning of the gene in order to impose their agenda on it, ultimately at the expense of the plant. This intense zooming on the workings of biotechnology is meant to underscore its attachment to a patriarchal illusion of control that emerges from a Cartesian divide between nature and humans.[43] The language of commercial chile breeding links this responsibility to men. Garcia is referred to as the “father” of the industry and most chile farmers growing Certified New Mexico chiles are men.[44] In the poem mentioned at the beginning of the paper, Chile Chimayoso calls Chile Número 10 “motherless.”[45]
Forsey writes about social conditioning and actual life experience as making women generally more respectful of natural processes and more skeptical of attempts at mastery and conquest. Many women’s bodies are landscapes of lived experiences which counters the idea that one can (or should attempt) to control everything. This is consistent with research findings by Ling et al. which tested six hypotheses in which women were overall more skeptical of GMOs than men. The researchers found that women in the US had a less favorable attitude regarding the usefulness and moral acceptability of GM foods. In addition, women found GM foods more risky and less economically necessary. The report concludes with a recommendation to market GM foods in a way that diminishes the perceived higher risks which women hold regarding GM foods and highlights the relative advantages of GM foods to women in particular. This is just one example of the patronizing attitude that certain science takes towards women’s resistance. Women’s skepticism to GM foods is again understood as something that must be changed and managed. Another researcher a NMSU was quoted in response to GM chile opposition as saying “…I think it probably comes back to people’s core beliefs; maybe they don’t understand the technology; they don’t trust it.”[46]For him, it is inconceivable that perhaps this resistance comes from a place of intense understanding with what is at stake.
The gender dimension is significant with regard to seeds because it is an issue of reproduction. The way in which GE seeds are brought to fruition is through a sterile lab environment, wherein the scientist is solely responsible. There is no pollination; in effect, there is no plant sex. The “parents” in this setting are desirable strands of DNA, often taken from native varieties, but taken out of context and exploited for the scientist’s commercial agenda. Implicit in this critique of GE chiles is a critique of the commercial market in which they are sold, because their development is informed by the commodity market. Chile as a commodity, a mass produced and sellable object, justifies the efforts taken to create a variety which can withstand chemical applications at the expense of flavor, soil, and people. Genetic engineering essentially disconnects the wellness of the chile seeds from the wellness of its ecology. Farmers are now inclined to purchase an herbicide that erodes their soil and harms pollinators. Consumers are eating a technology which has been tied to significant health risks. The chile’s collaborative plants like corn and beans are rendered unnecessary. And finally, the simultaneous push towards mechanization removes humans out of the growing equation. This process is anti-life and is at odds with a feminist ecological agriculture which at its core connects the wellbeing of the seed to the wellbeing of its surrounding ecology. Ecofeminism recognizes the intrinsic worth and integrity of all beings, including nonhuman life.[47] In contrast, capitalist patriarchy recognizes only the rights of those who have and control capital; as in the case of chiles in New Mexico, this is largely men.
The feminist critique of GE chile is not an attack on the men who catalyzed its inception, but rather a defense of the historical and lived experience of women and their knowledge of seed and regeneration which informs their resistance to it. Landrace chile bridges an epistemology of ecofeminism with an ontological practice of planting native seeds. In other words, it reifies the indigenous principle of Place-Thought, or a non-distinctive space where theory and place are never separated because any pretense of separation is an illusion.[48] It is a holistically contextualized and connected practice. Genetic engineering embodies disconnection through dispossession with the goal of capital accumulation. Where Chile Chamayoso proclaims his ancestry to the Red Earth Mother, the lord of water and rain called Tlaloc, and Lady Chicomecóatl, the mother of nourishment, Chile Número 10 claims his ancestry to a test tube,and is devoid of regenerative capabilities.
At the heart of the matter is a call to action towards a feminist and decolonial imagining of food production. Genetic engineering in chiles is a translation of food into that which does not truly nourish, and so it must be understood as a destructive tool. This is not a radical idea. The truly radical experience is the counterproductive way chiles are being appropriated as commodities and removed from their regenerative partnership with humans.
***
[1] Enrique Lamadrid, Vigil Cipriano, and Estevan Arellano, “NM Chile Nativo,” Save New Mexico Seeds, 2009, accessed December 11, 2018, http://www.savenmseeds.org/index.php/nm-chile-nativo.
[2] Mary Caroline Montaño, “Trovo,” in Tradiciones Nuevomexicanas: Hispano Arts and Culture of New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001), 168.
[3] A trovo is a duet between two competing figures. In the book Tradiciones Nuevomexicanas: Hispano arts and culture of New Mexico by Mary Caroline Montaño, she writes that trovos come from the time when poets and musicians served as news-givers, so the subject matter is often covering a controversial topic. The first part of the poem has the two trovadores taunting each other, and the trovadore with the most creative lines and literary references generally wins.
[4] Kristen Davenport, “Red or Green: Chiles are among a Family’s Most Valuable Possessions,” Santa Fe New Mexican, May 16, 2013, https://www.santafenewmexican.com/magazines/red-or-green-chiles-are-among-a-family-s-most/article_2d8e16e4-be92-11e2-adb5-001a4bcf6878.html.
[5] La guerra de los Chiles is written in Spanish with a corresponding English translation. For the purposes of this paper, I am referring to the English translation.
[6] Israel Joukhadar, Stephanie Walker, and Paul Funk, “Mechanizing Chile Peppers: Challenges and Advances in Transitioning Harvest of New Mexico’s Signature Crop,” HortTechnology 24, no. 3 (2014): 281–284.
[7] Cary Blake, “Southwest Chile Pepper Industry at Crossroads,” Western Farm Press, September 29, 2010, https://www.farmprogress.com/node/308495.
[8] Blake, “Southwest Chile Pepper.”
[9] Isaura Andaluz, “Celebrating the Chile Nativo,” in Seed Sovereignty, Food Security, ed. Vandana Shiva (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2016), 237–248.
[10] Paul Funk, Stephanie Walker, and Ryan Herbon, “A Systems Approach to Chile Harvest Mechanization,” International Journal of Vegetable Science 17, no. 3 (June 2011): 296–309.
[11]Jose Luis Gomez Ortega, Wathsala Rajapakse, Suman Bagga, Kimberly Apodaca, Yvonne Lucero, and Champa Sengupta-Gopalan, “An Intragenic Approach to Confer Glyphosate Resistance in Chile (Capsicum Annuum) by Introducing an in Vitro Mutagenized Chile EPSPS Gene Encoding for a Glyphosate Resistant EPSPS Protein,” PLoS ONE 13, no. 4 2018): 1–22.
[12] Andaluz, “Celebrating the Chile Nativo,” 237.
[13] Joseph Mendelson, “Roundup: The World’s Biggest-Selling Herbicide,” Ecologist 28, no. 5 (2018): 270–275.
[14] “Round up RoundUp,” Navdanya, accessed November 12, 2018, http://navdanya.org/news/493-round-up-round-up.
[15] Maureen Shisia, “The World’s Top Chili Pepper Producing Countries,” World Atlas, last modified October 31, 2017, https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-top-chili-pepper-producing-countries.html.
[16] United States Department of Agriculture, “World Markets and Trade: Commodities and Data” Foreign Agricultural Service/Office of Global Analysis, March 2, 2019, 19.
[17] Lamadrid, Cipriano, and Arellano, “NM Chile Nativo.”
[18] “New Mexico Certified Chile Program,” New Mexico Chile Association, accessed November 12, 2018, https://nmchileassociation.com/new-mexico-certified-chile-program/.
[19] “NMCA Board of Directors and Executive Management,” New Mexico Chile Association, accessed November 12, 2018, http://nmchileassociation.com/nmca-mission/nmca-board-of-directors-and-executive-management/.
[20] New Mexico Senate, NM Child Advertising Act Violations, HR 238, 51st Legislature, 1st Session of 2013, introduced in Senate March 1, 2013, http://www.sos.state.nm.us/uploads/files/HB238.pdf.
[21] Davenport, “Red or Green.”
[22] Paul Bosland, “Chiles: A Gift from a Fiery God,” Hortscience 34, no. 5 (1999): 809–811.
[23] Bosland, “A Gift from a Fiery God,” 810.
[24] Bosland, 810.
[25] Andaluz, “Celebrating the Chile Nativo,” 237.
[26] Nina Bunker Ruiz, “A Passion for Peppers: The Movement to Save New Mexico’s Treasured,” YES! Magazine, February 14, 2014, https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/a-passion-for-peppers-the-movement-to-save-new-mexico-s-treasured-chiles.
[27] Ashley Powers, “New Mexico ‘Occupy’ Protesters: The 99% Who Love Chile,” LA Times, December 5, 2011, https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/12/new-mexico-chile-genetically-modified-food-occupy-wall-street.html.
[28] David Fryxell, “The Red-or-Greening of New Mexico,” Desert Exposure, December 2007, http://www.desertexposure.com/200712/200712_garcia_chile.php.
[29] Fryxell, “The Red-or-Greening.”
[30] Bosland, “A Gift from a Fiery God,” 810.
[31] Davenport, “Red or Green.”
[32] Terrence Haverluk, “Chile Peppers and Identity Construction in Pueblo, Colorado,” Journal for the Study of Food and Society 6, no. 1 (2002): 45–59.
[33] Vandana Shiva, “The Seed and the Earth: Biotechnology and the Colonisation of Regeneration,” Development Dialogue (1994): 151–168.
[34] Mita Banerjee, “Biopiracy in India: Seed Diversity and the Scramble for Knowledge,” Phytomedicine (September 2018): 1–6.
[35] Banerjee, “Biopiracy in India,” 4.
[36] Steve Hanson, Leslie Beck, Nancy Flores, Stephanie Walker, Mark Marsalis, and Richard Heerema, “GMO Crops in New Mexico Agriculture,” New Mexico State University Circular 682, January 2017, https://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_circulars/CR682.pdf.
[37] Hanson, Beck, Flores, Walker, Marsalis, and Heerma, “GMO Crops,” 3.
[38] Helen Forsey, “GMOs: Globalizing Male Omnipotence,” Canadian Woman Studies 21, no. 3 (2002): 207–211.
[39] Mae-Wan Ho, “The New Genetics and Dangers of GMOs,” in Seed Sovereignty, Food Security, ed. Vandana Shiva (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2016), 105–115.
[40] Ibid, 107.
[41] Ortega, Jose Luis et al. “An Intragenic Approach to Confer Glyphosate Resistance in Chile (Capsicum Annuum) by Introducing an in Vitro Mutagenized Chile EPSPS Gene Encoding for a Glyphosate Resistant EPSPS Protein.” PLoS ONE 13.4 (2018): 1–22. Web.
[42] Ho, “The New Genetics,” 3.
[43] Forsey, “Globalizing Male Omnipotence.”
[44] Fryxell, “The Red-or-Greening.”
[45] Lamadrid, Cipriano, and Arellano, “NM Chile Nativo.”
[46] Laura Paskus, “Red, Green or GMO?,” Santa Fe Reporter, October 14, 2008, https://www.sfreporter.com/news/coverstories/2008/10/15/red-green-or-gmo/.
[47] Vandana Shiva, “Golden Rice and Neem: Biopatents and the Appropriation of Women’s Environmental Knowledge,” Women’s Studies Quarterly XXIX no. 1&2 (2001): 12–23.
[48] Heather Davis and Zoe Todd, “On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene,” Acme 16, no. 4 (2017): 761–780.