Vermont Town Serves Kids Coffee as Free Trade Protest

 

Dairy Farmers Use Manure Threat to Defeat Milk Plan

In a show of solidarity with Third World peasant coffee farmers, a Vermont town has begun serving coffee three times a day to school children from the second grade upward. The coffee is brewed from fresh ground beans known to, or at least believed to have come from peasant farmers.

"This is a message we're sending to the free trade zealots and the global coffee bean barons," said John Payne, president of the Livingston Corners, Vermont school board. "It's about the plight of millions of peasant families whose lives depend upon fair prices for their coffee beans."

Livingston Corners, population 2,105, is located in central part of the state, five miles west of Gruver Junction. The rural area is dotted by dairy farms and summer homes of New York City novelists.

"Vermonters are nothing, if not realists," Payne said. "We know our action by itself won't greatly improve the lives of peasant coffee farmers. But if every school district in the country embraced our program to increase consumption of peasant beans, subsistence coffee farmers around the world would be raising a toast or two at the local cantina."

The coffee measure had unanimous support from the five board members, though one, Etta Leason, abstained from voting, saying she wanted the action to also acknowledge the plight of Africa's cotton farmers by mandating that students wear uniforms made of cotton certified as grown in Africa.

At the same meeting, the school board also voted to remove all soft drink and candy machines from the district's schools, citing concern about high sugar content.

The board debated at length whether candy the high school cheerleaders sell as a fundraiser should be of the the low-sugar, low-fat type. Reminded of the school district's financial problems, the board finally directed the cheerleaders "to sell whatever makes the most money." Jasmine Monette, the cheerleaders' faculty sponsor, thanked the board for its decision and advised the members to "start licking your chops for bitchin' chocolate."

A plan to stop selling milk to students because of its high fat content was tabled when a delegation from the local dairy coop pointed out that some students might want to add a dollop of milk or cream to their coffee. During an impassioned plea to the school board, the farmers also pointed out that they could repudiate the voluntary Manure Distribution Plan entered into with the Livingston Corners selectmen two years ago. Under the plan, farmers spread manure taken from their barns on fields on a rotating weekly schedule so that only one farmer at a time is spreading manure.

"Imagine if every member of the coop was to spread his manure simultaneously on a morning when there's a south wind blowing," Joe Epps told the board to applause from his fellow dairymen. Livingston Corners and the New York City novelist belt both lie immediately to the north of the dairy farm belt.

In voting with the others to table the milk plan, board member Leason urged the dairy coop to work on developing cows that give only fat-free milk. "That would be a wonderful public service," she said. She also urged the farmers to use towels made only from African cotton. July 17, 2003

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