Gleaning An Occupation as Old as the Hills

Gleaning -

An Occupation as Old as the Hills

By Chris Turnbull

Hythe Environmental Community Group is all about a community-led approach to making the Hythe area a more fulfilling, sustainable place to live.

The Bible tells farmers to: “leave corners of their fields unharvested, not to pick up that which was dropped (gleanings), and not to harvest any over-looked produce that had been forgotten when they harvested the majority of a field. These things should be left for the Poor, for strangers, widows and paternal orphans.” Gleaning was a right of the poor up to the late 18th century, under common law. After a farmer had harvested his crops, labourers and poor members of the farming community could gather any leftovers in the fields, providing a useful supplement to a family’s income or providing additional food. Present day food inequalities together with wastage caused by our perceived preferences for “perfect” fruit and veg, rising unemployment, increasing poverty and the need to support many people in their own homes have given gleaning an important position in community volunteering.

In the UK, the prime mover for gleaning is “Feedback” which is a campaign group working to “regenerate nature by transforming the food supply system”. Waste is at the top of their agenda and they provide training and resources for local gleaning hubs to get up and running. With their help, we now have a highly active and successful gleaning hub as part of Hythe Environmental Community Group. The gleaning activity is only a small part of the story which would be pointless without an effective local distribution network which can target those in need and it has been fascinating identifying and working with all of the wonderful local groups whose aim that is. These include schools running foodbanks or supplementing free school meals, The Salvation Army, Rainbow Centre and Action on Homelessness in Folkestone, Kent Refugee Action Network, Folkestone Women’s Shelter, Home Farm Trust, Single Mums and the amazing Streetz2Streetz as well as the Covid Hubs/Age UK kitchens and The Pilgrim’s Hospice.

Community support for our gleaning has been great and we now have 37 potential gleaners on our list. Unfortunately, many can’t always join the gleans, but we regularly raise a team of 8 -12 which is large enough to satisfy the needs of our local customers. From April to the writing of this article in November, we have run 63 gleans, and rescued 25 tonnes of fruit and veg which would otherwise have gone to waste. 23 tonnes have gone to our local charities and organisations and the other 2 tonnes were picked by our teams for supply to London and Thanet foodbanks.

Our wonderful farmers have given us access to their cherries, plums, apples, pears, potatoes, greens and squashes and our list of sources for produce grows all the time. This year we have started to include a little urban gleaning where we go in and clear unwanted fruit from local gardens and private orchards, reducing the massive wastage that occurs every year. If you know of fruit or veg that went to waste this year, let us know and we will try to make contact with the owner next season to avoid the same happening.

Looking to the future, we are committed to supporting a local hub approach to gleaning and to help other groups set up other hubs in East Kent. There is plenty of produce to be gleaned and it is very satisfying to be able to deliver it to your local charities. Currently we work closely with Deal-based “Deal With It” and hope that initial discussions with Folkestone, Dover and Thanet will bear fruit (and veg).

Currently, under Covid restrictions, we unfortunately have to travel in multiple cars. However, this does enable good cargo carrying and it may be that when car sharing is again sensible, we will be looking for the loan of a minibus to minimise environmental impact from travel and give the required load carrying capacity. Gleaning is fun, sociable, healthy (physically and mentally) and gives an interesting insight into the challenges of farming these days. If you’d like to join us or have skills/contacts that can help us – please drop me a line at hytheecg@yahoo.com Website: https://hytheenvironmental.community/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups /1403528403025955/ Email: hytheecg@yahoo.com