Grape news! For growers of NC’s state fruit: A call to mandate their juice in schools
For the supporters of the muscadine grape juice bill, it would do a bunch of things:
It would promote the Scuppernong grape, which is a kind of muscadine grape, and is the North Carolina state fruit.
It would help North Carolina farmers who need support.
It would offer students a product in schools that isn’t from a soft drink company.
That’s what bill sponsor Rep. Julia Howard, a Mocksville Republican, tried to get across to fellow lawmakers during a House floor debate Tuesday.
House Bill 136 would make state, local and charter school boards ensure that 100% muscadine grape juice is made available to students in every school. It also calls for muscadine grape juice in community colleges’ campus vending machines.
Howard said that they “need to help our growers, particularly our growers in the eastern part of the state.”
According to the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Office at N.C. State, muscadine grapes are popular to use in making wine, pie and jelly.
Debate fell mostly along party lines. Everyone liked the idea of supporting state agriculture, but some lawmakers didn’t like that muscadine grape juice would be mandated as an offering at schools.
Rep. Julie von Haefen, an Apex Democrat, said grape juice is the least preferred juice by students and that the bill doesn’t allocate any funding for it.
Rep. Larry Pittman, a Republican from Concord, which is not the Concord known for a type for grape, also opposed the bill. Pittman didn’t like that the bill used the word “shall,” because he does not want to mandate the muscadine grape juice.
Pittman said it’s a great idea to have juice in schools, but “not to force it.”
Rep. Marcia Morey, a Durham Democrat, called the mandate “problematic.”
“Let’s keep it the way it is,” she said.
Bill supporters picked up the mandate question by noting the bill doesn’t require students to drink it.
Rep. Jeffrey Elmore, who is a teacher, brought up the free market.
“I wish our school lunches were more free enterprise,” he said.
No one mentioned how muscadine grapes taste.
Support for the grapes squashed dissent, and the bill passed 91-22 on second reading, and on a voice vote for third reading.
“Ayes have it. Juice is free in the state again,” quipped House Speaker Tim Moore, a Kings Mountain Republican.
It now goes to the Senate.
North Carolina has a mixed bowl of fruit representation. Grapes aren’t the only fruit on the vine of state symbols: the North Carolina red berry is the strawberry and state blue berry is the, well, blueberry.
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This story was originally published March 23, 2021 at 4:57 PM with the headline "Grape news! For growers of NC’s state fruit: A call to mandate their juice in schools."