California grapes will not be available from University stores in the foreseeable future as administrators decided this week to reinstate a California grape boycott due to farm workers' health and labor conditions.
The decision, which involved a number of administrators, including Joe Pietrantoni, associate vice president of auxiliary services, Charles Putman, executive vice president for administration, and President Nan Keohane, was partly based on a recommendation from the Duke University Student Dining Advisory Council, which advocated upholding the boycott.
Grapes will be available on campus, but will come from other areas of the world, such as Chile and other South American countries.
The grape policy, like most University purchasing policies, will be reviewed periodically, Pietrantoni said.
Debate over the use of California grapes flared last semester, when Mi Gente, the Latino student organization, and Student Action with Farm Workers demanded that University vendors break their current contracts with distributors of California table grapes in protest of the labor conditions and pesticides farm workers faced.
Pietrantoni said Wednesday that a California grape boycott is not as extreme as some might believe.
"We don't have California grapes all the time because they're seasonal," he said, "so we're not even talking about all the grapes we purchase but a percentage of them."
In its recommendation, DUSDAC members stated that they felt the matter was "a human rights issue," said Trinity sophomore Ashley Wells, chair of the committee. Trinity senior Roberto Lopez, coordinator of Mi Gente, said that he was proud of Mi Gente's efforts in advocating the grape boycott.
"I also think the University's action speaks to the injustices that occurred years ago and have not been abolished, though some may think they have been," he said.
Trinity sophomore Adam Needles, who has worked to oppose the grape boycott since November, said he thinks that in making their decision, DUSDAC and the administration looked at the issue from the wrong angle.
"It's unfortunate that the University has taken a position on this as a health issue when all this is is a labor dispute," said Needles, who presented DUSDAC with supporting materials from the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and a number of California labor organizations.
Needles also said he found it contradictory to boycott California grapes while buying Chilean grapes on the grounds of worker conditions.
"[Purchasing Chilean grapes] is an inappropriate and ridiculous alternative to protect farm workers. In Chile, working conditions are unsafe, unreasonable and unregulated."
But Lopez asserted that protesting California grapes was not Mi Gente's only goal."This is what we're fighting right now, but it's not the last thing we're fighting," he said.
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