Gleaning is making a comeback in the United States as a national anti-hunger and food recovery movement. Gleaning ensures that unused food is recovered from farms and received by organizations with the capacity to share the yield with families and individuals who are food insecure. Farmers may leave unharvested crops in their field for a variety of reasons. Perhaps mechanical harvesting missed a section of the yield, the crops are cosmetically lacking making them less desirable for sale, or the farmer overplanted for what there was demand for.

Volunteers are often the key to gleaning as labor is needed to harvest the crops, especially given gleaning opportunities are often announced short notice. Local producers may contact No More Empty Pots when a gleaning opportunity arises. The recovered food is returned to the Food Hub where it’s used in Community Harvest or other food distribution programming!