JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Food banks around the U.S. have been shoring up as more people are showing up. There is a need for fresh food. Crops can come from several sources, including after a farmer's harvest. That's called gleaning - the practice of collecting excess crops. As New England Public Media's Jill Kaufman reports, this is a source of tons of fresh food that would otherwise go to waste.
SARAH BLUESTEIN: I'm Sarah. I'm the community gleaning coordinator for Rachel's Table. Welcome to your first glean if this is your first glean.
JILL KAUFMAN, BYLINE: The No. 1 rule of gleaning, Sarah Bluestein says - don't pick the wrong crop.
BLUESTEIN: And we're going to harvest romaine lettuce today.
KAUFMAN: For about half the year, Rachel's Table volunteers are out in fields rescuing edible cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, peaches. They deliver the produce to dozens of food banks and pantries that help people who, for whatever reasons, need help getting nutritious food on their plates.
BLUESTEIN: And can I have everyone say your name and the town...
KAUFMAN: On this November morning, about a dozen volunteers are here at Atlas Farm in Deerfield, Massachusetts. They have about an hour to pick a hundred huge bags of lettuce that several pantries said they could definitely use.
BLUESTEIN: Everything we harvest is tax deductible for the farmer at the end of the year as a donation, so we make sure to weigh every pound of it. That's how I know we've gleaned way past 70,000 pounds of produce this year, which is just mind-blowing.
KAUFMAN: This small organization has been gleaning at a scale they've never gleaned before, Bluestein says. This month has been intense, with demand from food banks, coordinating deliveries and, of course, picking and hauling.
BLUESTEIN: I'm going to call out Jean for filling her car with, I don't know, like, say, 700 pounds of apples last week.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Even the glove compartment.
(LAUGHTER)
JEAN GORDAN: Any space they could find - the front seat, the side, the back.
KAUFMAN: Jean Gordan is a Pentecostal minister in Springfield, Massachusetts. She knows everybody. The timing of such abundance in the fields is perfect, she says. There is such a need. And those apples?
GORDAN: I dropped them off at two senior living residents, and then I dropped them off to, like, four churches.
KAUFMAN: Gordan knew exactly what gleaning was when she heard about it a few years ago. It's in the Book of Ruth.
GORDAN: And she was a widow. And I think she followed her mother in law, Naomi, back to where she's from, and they didn't have nothing. So they went - they practiced gleaning as a Jewish ritual.
KAUFMAN: When you harvest your land, don't strip it bare, the Bible says. Leave something for the poor.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Gleaning goes on until December.
KAUFMAN: In the field, volunteers are busy cutting and bagging lettuce and checking in with each other about removing wilted leaves.
(SOUNDBITE OF LETTUCE LEAVES RUSTLING)
KAUFMAN: Like most farms, Atlas has planted more than it can sell, in case crops get damaged by flood or there's a drought. When things go well, there's extra. And right now, there's extra need too.
USHA THAKRAR: There's a lot of anxiety on the ground at the food pantry level around what's happening and what's coming next.
KAUFMAN: Usha Thakrar is the director of Boston Area Gleaners. They distribute fresh food to about 80 different pantries in eastern and central Massachusetts.
THAKRAR: 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 that came with it. And we sort of staffed up for, like, a 30% increase and we saw more like a 60% increase.
(SOUNDBITE OF LETTUCE LEAVES RUSTLING)
BLUESTEIN: This is a hundred?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: One hundred.
BLUESTEIN: One hundred.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLAPPING)
BLUESTEIN: Yay.
KAUFMAN: Back at the farm, the van drivers have weighed and loaded the bags of lettuce, but there's still more. Volunteer Jean Gordan will load those into her vehicle to bring to other pantries. And even with so much picked, there is so much left that could be gleaned.
For NPR News, I'm Jill Kaufman in Deerfield, Massachusetts.
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