On a recent November morning about a dozen people are at Atlas Farm, in Deerfield, Massachusetts. They have about an hour before a van arrives to collect 100 bags — huge bags — of lettuce . The produce will then be distributed to food pantries, shelters, and to area food banks that re-distribute food to other providers.
“Welcome to your first glean, if this is your first glean," said Sarah Bluestein of Rachel's Table, based in Springfield.
The number one rule she told them, don't pick the wrong crop.
"Can I have everyone say your name and the town you’re coming from … ," Bluestein said warming up the small group, many who knew each other from past gleans.
Gleaned produce is usually top quality, held to the same standard as grocery produce.
"The ribs on these heads of lettuce have been a little bit damaged by the cold and the frost. So they're a little imperfect in a way that they probably couldn't be sold. But they're still delicious to eat," Bluestein said.
"I'll show you how we're going to pick the lettuce," Bluestein said, half-joking that another rule is, don't get blood on the lettuce; if you cut yourself harvesting, find her for a bandage.
In the field volunteers are cutting and bagging lettuce, and checking in with each other about removing wilted leaves.
A big need
Over the last few weeks, groups that provide food for people in need have increased their requests to Rachel's Kitchen for produce, Bluestein said.
Food banks and soup kitchens around the U.S. are supplying more now, than in past years, as more people are needing food assistance, not just for shelf stable food, but for fruits and vegetables.
Produce comes from several sources, including organizations that glean fields — with volunteers collecting excess crops after farmers finish their harvest.
"I think we already had this big need," Bluestein said, "And then with SNAP cuts [when the U.S. government was shut down], that's just devastating," she said, adding that SNAP is not something that can be replaced by gleaning extra lettuce and cabbages, but it's one part of the puzzle.
"We're just growing so much food right here in western Mass., " Bluestein said. "What's blown my mind is in the past weeks, we've been able to move such a huge volume of produce, and that's been incredible to see."
"Mind-blowing," 70,000 pounds of produce collected
In this part of the country, gleaning potentially takes place for about half of the year, when volunteers can be out in fields and orchards rescuing cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, peaches and other fresh food. That's literally tons of fresh food, otherwise going to waste or tilled back in to a field.
"Everything we harvest is tax deductible for the farmer at the end of the year as a donation," Bluestein said, adding that they make sure to weigh every pound of what's picked and distributed, even by volunteers.
"We tally it all up. That's how I know we've gleaned way past 70,000 pounds of produce this year, which is just mind blowing," Bluestein said.
Rachel's Kitchen, a relatively small organization, has been gleaning at a scale they've never gleaned before Bluestein said. None of this happens without volunteers.
"I'm going to call out Jean for filling her [van] with, I don't know like 700 pounds of apples last week," Bluestein said to the volunteers.
"Apples even in the glove compartment!," a volunteer chimed in.
“Any space they could find, Gordan said, "front seat, side, the back," said Jean Gordan, a Pentecostal minister in Springfield, Mass., who seems to know a lot of people.
"I dropped [the apples ] off at two senior living residents, Gordan said, standing between rows of lettuce, "and then I dropped them off at four churches."
"It's a story in the Book of Ruth"
The timing of such abundance in the fields is perfect, she said adding, there's such a need.
When she first heard about a volunteering opportunity to glean farm fields, Gordan said she knew exactly what gleaning was, pointing out, it's a story in the Book of Ruth.
“She was a widow, and I think she followed her mother in law Naomi back to where she is from," Gordan explained. "They didn't have nothing, so they practiced gleaning as a Jewish ritual.”
Written thousands of years ago in the Jewish Torah and then the Old Testament, when you harvest your land, farmers were told, don't strip it bare, leave something for the poor.
Like many farms, Atlas Farm has planted more than it can sell, in case crops get damaged by flood or there’s a drought.
There are at least 202 gleaning projects in the U.S., working with farmers, and with wholesale markets and grocery stores, according to the Association of Gleaning Organizations in Utah.
Food recovery is another term that's used by gleaner, with another goal of limiting food waste. When the growing season goes well, like this year in western Mass., there's extra, and right now there’s extra need too.
"There's a lot of anxiety on the ground at the food pantry level around what's happening and what's coming next," said Usha Thakrar, the executive director of Boston Area Gleaners. The group distributes fresh food to about 80 different pantries in eastern and central Massachusetts.
"This year, even before the latest concerns around SNAP we had expected some increase in demand just because of the new administration and the uncertainty [around federal food assistance] that came with it," Thakrar said.
Boston Area Gleaners staffed up for about a 30% increase, Thakrar said, "and we saw more like a 60% increase [from food banks]."
A strict definition of gleaning includes only the harvesting of crops from fields and orchards, according to the National Gleaning Project in Vermont, but today many organizations recover food across the larger food system.
Boston Area Gleaners had their last harvest at the end of October, Thakrar said. At this time of year, they glean more so from the wholesale produce world.
"There's rejected produce at the wholesale level," Thakrar explained. "Some of it is often perfectly good food," she said, for instance from a palette that tipped over.
"We've really supplemented our supply with that source. That's been a significant. We couldn't have met the need this season without that supply," Thakrar said.
The volunteers at Atlas Farm swiftly picked 100 bags of lettuce, weighing about 15 pounds each, which the van drivers and Sarah Bluestein weighed, then loaded.
On this day, and on many gleans, more was picked than needed by the food distributors. Volunteer Jean Gordan and others will load those bags into their vehicles to bring to pantries and shelters.
And even with so much picked there was still so much left in the field.
