Editor’s note: This commentary is by Steven Gorelick, of South Walden, who is managing programs director for the nonprofit Local Futures. The views expressed are his own.
The sugaring was poor last season, and our 25 taps didn’t yield nearly enough syrup to get us through the year. So we’ve been buying syrup from a neighbor – someone who makes his living from his sugar bush. His syrup comes in those gallon jugs with the iconic sugaring image – men in plaid jackets carrying sap buckets to a tank on a horse-drawn sled, the sugarhouse in the background nestled among the trees, steam billowing from the cupola. One can easily imagine the scene inside: neighbors trading gossip, dipping donuts into hot syrup and eating homemade pickles, all accompanied by the roar of the fire and the hiss of the sap.
I had this image in mind as I read a disturbing news report about the industrialization of maple syrup production in Vermont. In case you haven’t heard, Sweet Tree LLC (owned by a Connecticut-based investment firm) is currently boiling sap from 100,000 taps in a gleaming new factory in Island Pond. If the company reaches its goal of 500,000 taps, it will be the largest sugaring operation in the world. In this factory you won’t find firewood gathered from the sugarbush: everything runs on electric power and fossil fuels. You won’t find buckets, either: everything is on pipeline, the flow augmented by vacuum pumps. Nor is there a horse-drawn sled: the sap – already reduced by reverse-osmosis machines – is delivered from the sugarbush in diesel tanker trucks.
The forces transforming maple syrup production in Vermont are similar to those that have decimated the state’s small dairy farms. In both cases, the “technological treadmill” requires producers to make continual investments in equipment just to keep from falling behind – a race that small producers can’t win. Most maple sugarers abandoned sap buckets long ago for pipeline, and a sizeable number have adopted the use of vacuum pumps to increase sap flow. On the bigger operations reverse-osmosis equipment shortens boiling time, and in many sugarhouses firewood from the sugarbush has been supplanted by fossil fuels. All of these “advances” aim at increasing efficiency – shorthand for using technology and energy to reduce human labor. But the net effect is to increase the supply of maple syrup (thus keeping its price down) while requiring producers to pour tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars into equipment. Whether it’s milk or maple syrup, smaller producers without the capital to invest – or whose herds or sugarbushes aren’t big enough to justify the expense – eventually give up.
Expensive labor-saving technologies not only make it difficult for small producers to survive, they also reduce the number of jobs available among those that remain. It’s true that 24 jobs have been created in Island Pond by the Sweet Tree operation; but 100,000 taps divided among numerous small-scale operations would provide livelihoods for five to 10 times as many people. The local economic benefits would also be far greater: the profits from the Sweet Tree factory will be siphoned off to Connecticut, while the profits from smaller producers would circulate locally.
Although Sweet Tree has no connection to that way of life – and in fact will help to undermine its remaining vestiges in Vermont – the company was drawn here because they can exploit it via that malignant concept, the “Vermont brand.”
The sugaring image on that gallon of syrup reflects a way of life – slower and less high-tech, more localized and neighborly – that many people rightly yearn for. Although Sweet Tree has no connection to that way of life – and in fact will help to undermine its remaining vestiges in Vermont – the company was drawn here because they can exploit it via that malignant concept, the “Vermont brand.” “We chose Vermont because it’s pre-branded,” said Sweet Tree CEO Bob Saul. “Thank you very much, state of Vermont, for having the best brand of any state.”
I don’t subscribe to the view that capitalism and technological advance are unstoppable processes, or that “there’s no going back.” I’ve therefore jotted down some modest proposals that might slow or even halt the further industrialization of maple syrup production in our state:
• Require sugarmakers to use an image of their own sugarhouse, rather than an idealized image from 1920, on the label. Sweet Tree’s label, therefore, would show a 2-acre industrial metal-clad box.
• Give purchasers a way to choose maple syrup that employs more people, keeps money circulating locally, uses less non-renewable energy, and is produced by small farmers. Do this by establishing a grading system based not on the color of the syrup but on the level of technology employed in producing it. At one end of the spectrum would be operations that use buckets, human and animal power, and firewood from the sugarbush. At the other end would be the syrup factory using pipeline, vacuum, reverse osmosis, propane or fuel oil for boiling, and diesel trucks to haul the sap. Intermediate “grades” would reveal the extent to which energy-intensive, labor-destroying technologies have invaded the sugaring operation.
• Get state government to exempt small producers from some of the regulations that are currently applied to big and small producers alike – e.g. the requirement that every sugarhouse have a concrete floor.
• Insist that UVM’s Proctor Maple Research Center focus on what small producers need, like inexpensive lead-free buckets, instead of working to develop newer and more expensive labor-displacing technologies.
• Ban the hauling of sap on state highways.
• Stop denigrating manual labor. Farm and forest work – and physical labor in general – are systematically portrayed in the schools and in the media as something to escape from, while “good” jobs involve sitting in front of a computer. It’s no wonder that our children leave Vermont to seek employment, while immigrant labor must be sought to fill the jobs on farms.
• Require supermarkets to place industrially-produced syrup next to the Log Cabin and Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup, where it belongs.
If these proposals sound unrealistic, then please come up with your own. Otherwise, bear your share of responsibility for allowing Vermont to be hollowed out from the inside – all for the benefit of those who will exploit the “Vermont brand” until there is nothing left of our state but image: artificial, empty and meaningless.
