Olathe Sweet Corn harvest still facing challenges amid earworm crop destruction in Colorado

There are quite a few steps that happen before you find Olathe Sweet Corn piled high in your local grocery stores. David Harold of Tuxido Farms in Olathe hopes people know the situation in which sweet corn is in on the Western Slope. 

"It's hard to tell that story. It's hard," Harold said. "It's very hard when I ship sweet corn to Kroger, it's very hard for Kroger to communicate my story to the consumer, right? At that level, it's the picture and a pile of corn. And... I'm trying to work on doing a better job of that."

Part of that story is the onslaught of corn earworms, which have created an especially difficult environment for sweet corn to grow. Researchers estimate that in the last year, half of the corn crop was destroyed due to the worms. 

"Last year was an invasion," Harold said. "I would call it an infestation from a pest known as Helicoverpa zea." 

While Colorado has had and dealt with the worm for decades, recently farmers have noticed that the pests are becoming resilient against the standard pesticides used to control the species. New methods are being researched to help keep corn for Coloradians, and not the bugs. 

The other aspect is new overtime laws put in place by the US Department of Labor, with the Fair Labor Standards Act that mandates overtime for workers who are making less than $844 a week. Harold said this has limited the number of hours his workers can spend in the field picking and packaging corn, as he simply cannot run a business with the additional costs. 

Martin Hernandez Garcia, one of the workers for Tuxido Farms said the job has afforded him the opportunity to support his family back in Mexico, and he's thankful Harold continues to employ him year after year. 

"It sustains his family and provides for them and gives them the money they need to buy things they need," Harold translated for Garcia. "Enough to invest in a little store or you know, not just what they need but to make their lives better."

Even with these challenges, Harold said corn production is up this year compared to last year, and getting their product to shelves with quality and equitable farming practices will be the difference maker that customers can taste. 

"The sweet corn market has moved in a different direction," Harold explained. "It's a long shelf life, it's a harder kernel, it's machine picked and they've moved away from what has made a national name brand product is that tender, hand-picked special attention for flavor tenderness."

That extra attention to detail and care comes at a cost. Slower picking and more expensive farming practices to take care of the fields for years to come create a smaller and smaller margin for the traditional farming style. But Harold said it's a level of quality his farm is not willing to give up on. He just hopes people notice. 

"Do people recognize and appreciate the commitments that we have to keep?"