Dairy Cows Don’t Milk Themselves

October 2023

Sally Wadhams

No doubt that a critical thread of being stronger together in Vermont and nationwide is our relationship with our local and national food systems. Most of us are now well aware that those food systems rely on a virtual battalion of migrant workers. In Vermont, the labor of more than 1,000 migrant workers from Latin America is key to sustaining our state’s dairy industry. Isolated in rural settings, these workers often go unnoticed and struggle to access even the most basic community resources which most of the rest of us can take for granted.

In Vermont, even with scores of dairy farms closing their doors, we still provide as much as 60% of all the milk in New England. But in order to produce the milk we drink and the cheese we love, cows have to be milked every 12 hours. This daily cycle can blast off at an alarm rattling 5 AM, only to repeat all over again at 5 PM. In between milkings are feedings, vet treatments, manure management, equipment repair, and crop planting and harvesting. On dairy farms of all sizes this is a 365-days a year chase.

According to the VT Farmworker Solidarity Project: 

• Approximately half of Vermont’s milk comes from the labor of undocumented workers, and the Vermont farmers who employ these migrant workers consistently state they could not survive without them. 

• Vermont’s migrant farmworkers do pay taxes, -- not only federal and state income taxes but also social security taxes and sales taxes from which they will never receive any direct benefits. Yet, there is no available legal path for undocumented immigrants to work on Vermont dairy farms.

Burlington-based Migrant Justice’s heroic work in support of Vermont’s farmworker community continues, and includes the decade long Milk with Dignity program as well as ongoing robust activism. Another example of support is the state’s Vermont Migrant Education Program, which provides a bridge connecting farm workers and their children to various educational, community and health services.

Right next door to us, Addison County activists work to support migrant farmers with an iron strong network that includes the Open Door Clinic and a Farmworker Housing Repair Program. The Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Society in Middlebury works with and through other groups to try to meet migrants’ language, legal, banking, shopping, transportation, health and housing needs. 

The Charlotte Grange supports and believes in these programs and others that are led with humanity, dignity and integrity. It’s part of our mission to honor our agricultural roots and help build a resilient future for all.

We’d like to invite everyone reading this to join us in a clothing drive for local migrant farmworkers. For the second year, we are working with our friends at Addison Allies to round up clothing here in Charlotte. Since 2018 the Addison Allies Network has worked to build an inclusive, stronger, and more diverse community by providing services and social integration for both migrant farmworkers and immigrants living in Addison County. 

The clothing drive for migrant farmworkers will be held October 12 and 15, 8-10 AM each day, with clothing drop-offs at the Charlotte Grange Hall at 2858 Spear Street. Specific needs will be posted on Front Porch Forum and at the Charlotte Grange’s website, under “events.” To learn more about the clothing drive, to volunteer to help visit the event page by clicking here.

We hope you can help us work in support of these workers who help keep Vermont’s farms growing and milk flowing. We’re already saying “thank you”.

Links to Local Organizations Working in Support of the Vermont Migrant Farmworker Community:

ADDISON ALLIES NETWORK
Email: addisonalliesnetwork@gmail.com, PH: 802-989-6866, and on facebook.
“Our purpose is to build a stronger more diverse and inclusive community by providing needed services to and social integration with migrant farm workers and immigrants living in Addison County, Vermont.The goal of the organization is to create a support system for immigrants working in Addison County who are left out of the current and available systems because of their work schedules language barriers and immigration status.”

OPEN DOOR CLINIC
https://opendoormidd.org
“The Open Door Clinic is a free health clinic for uninsured and under-insured adults in Addison County, Vermont. Our patients are our neighbors, friends, and family, keystone members of our community who work on and support local farms, restaurants, and small businesses. We also serve a special population: Latin American migrant farm workers who face profound language and cultural barriers”.

MIGRANT JUSTICE
https://migrantjustice.net
“Our mission is to build the voice, capacity, and power of the farmworker community and engage community partners to organize for economic justice and human rights. We gather the farmworker community to discuss and analyze shared problems and to envision collective solutions. Through this ongoing investment in leadership development, members deepen their skills in community education and organizing for long-term systemic change. From this basis our members have defined community problems as a denial of rights and dignity and have prioritized building a movement to secure these fundamental human rights to: 1) Dignified Work and Quality Housing; 2) Freedom of Movement and Access to Transportation; 3) Freedom from discrimination; 4) Access to Health Care.

VERMONT FARMWORKING HOUSING REPAIR PROGRAM
https://www.getahome.org/vermont-farmworker-housing-repair-loan-program
“ This program allows farmers to make essential repairs and necessary improvements to their farmworker housing. The goal of this program is to preserve this important affordable housing resource and to help improve the health and welfare of the farm workforce.”

VERMONT MIGRANT EDUCATION PROGRAM
https://education.vermont.gov/student-support/federal-programs/migrant-education
“The Vermont Migrant Education Program provides educational support services to eligible children of families that relocate in order to obtain seasonal or temporary employment in agriculture and to eligible out-of-school youth that have moved to obtain seasonal or temporary agricultural employment. These free services can include books, tutoring, homework support, English language learning, summer programs, and referrals to local resources. A child/youth is eligible up until their 22nd birthday or until they obtain their high school diploma or its equivalent.”