Holly Brause on Water Scarcity and the Terroir of New Mexico Chile

How does environmental change and water scarcity affect heritage crops? In this episode, Holly Brause discusses her newly published ethnographic research on the chile industry in southern New Mexico. In conversation with Paula Johnson of the Gastronomica Editorial Collective, Holly connects the local effects of climate change and drought to the economic and cultural value of a heritage crop. Drawing together taste, place, and practices of agricultural production, she explains how the strategies used to grow chiles under the conditions of water scarcity can have unintended consequences for the quantity and quality of chiles produced.