Migrant Justice    /    Justicia Migrante

The VT Migrant Farmworker Solidarity Project and allies are building a state-wide campaign for Bias-Free Policing in VT. Check out the new Action Pack and join us at: biasfreevt [at] gmail [dot] com. (This is a large file:)

http://vtmfsp.org/sites/default/files/ActionPackforBiasFreeVT.pdf

Also available as PDF

In this interview New York dairy farmer and independent journalist John Bunting walks us through the history of the ideas, institutions and polices that have systematically destroyed family dairy farms in Vermont. John's holistic and historical analysis demonstrate how policies promoting industrial large scale agriculture, free trade, and economic globalization have marginalized the family farmer and enriched and empowered corporations like Dean Foods enabling them to control 80% of the Northeast Dairy market. His insights map out what led to the current dairy crisis and how we might get out of it for the sake of family farmers, farm workers, and consumers. For more from John: http://johnbuntingsjournal.blogspot.com/ and http://www.themilkweed.com/index.htm

On January 9, 2010 the VT Migrant Farmworker Solidarity Project led a delegation to Chiapas, Mexico to return the body of migrant farmworker José Obeth Santis Cruz who was killed in a VT farming accident. We spent the first week with Obeth's family and community and the second week seeking to understand why so many people are migrating from Chiapas to Vermont. This 3 part interview with Abraham Rivera from the Center for Economic and Political Investigation and Community Action (www.ciepac.org) sheds light on the root causes of migration. Click on 'Read More' for parts 2 and 3.

This article was published on the front page of the St. Albans Messenger on 4/15/2010 by Linda Collins.

Enosburg Falls- Sixteen year old Gabino Hernandez , a junior at Enosburg Falls High School, is one of the voices that has been recorded on a website featuring interviews with Vermont's migrant farmworkers. Hernandez has a special interest in the project because his parents are migrant workers on the Gervais Farm in Bakersfield.

The Vermont's Silent Voices Project seeks to amplify the silenced voices of migrant farmworkers in Vermont in order to raise awareness about the experiences, needs, and hopes of some of the approximately 2,000 migrant farmworkers who have come to the aid of Vermont dairy farms in crisis. We hope to engage Vermonters in a much needed dialogue to work for more socially and economically just communities for ALL of those living and working in VT. In this first interview one of Vermont’s Silenced Voices shares the interdependencies between VT dairy farmers and migrant farmworkers. In the end, he appeals to the U.S. government to support both farmworkers and farmers. For more of Vermont's Silenced Voices Project go to: http://vtmigrantfarmworkersolidarity.org/taxonomy/term/1.