Gleaning
From Free net encyclopedia
Gleaning is the collection of leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been mechanically harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. Often gleaning is practiced by humanitarian groups which distribute the gleaned food to the poor and hungry.
When people glean and distribute food, they put themselves at some legal risk. In the U.S., a law signed in 1996 (The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act) promotes food recovery by limiting the liability of donors to instances of gross negligence or intentional misconduct.
Food Salvage programs work within the legal definitions of the Good Samaritan Act to consistently deliver surplus food from restaurants and dining facilities to emergency food centers.
The practice of gleaning is thousands of years old; it is mentioned in the Bible, in Leviticus 23:22:
- And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the LORD your God.