Gleaning

Gleaning is the picking over of crops by individuals after the main crop has been commercially harvested or even just left, usually due to its not being needed or worth picking by the grower or buyer, when economic conditions change or the plants appear cosmetically unsuitable.

Many crops are now industrially grown and harvested to order by large companies on behalf of supermarkets or processed food producers. The practice of planting more than is necessary can be to assure that there will be at least some viable crops should weather or other conditions affect plant growth. It is a reasonable strategy if the plants being grown and any chemicals used are clean organic in the sense of not being either genetically over-modified or unable to break down into organically safe constituents. What constitutes over-modification is open to inspection and debate.

With food poverty growing, even in so called first world countries, the establishment of food banks where food is freely distributed has become a large happening. Even institutions such as schools and hospitals are food poor as regards the people who attend them. Gleaning is often done by individuals for themselves or by volunteer groups for delivery to food banks and other bodies.

It is the case that gleaning keeps people alive in what are situations where the states in which they live have failed them. Charity and good will are not statutory.

Sustainability of Gleaning

Whether gleaning is something that should be an option or not is a fundamental question. Should there be such over-production of anything that apparent waste is the result ? The non-wasting of produced materials is not recycling, it is not re-use, it is not reduction, so that in the 3 R's approach of Reduce, Re-use, Re-cycle, Non-wastage represents yet another category. Given that planting "extra" to be safe is an age-old practice and seems sensible, the opportunity for gleaning is here to stay. Gleaning however is a volunteer activity and in instances also an illegal activity, but at base it is a fundamentally decent activity that should be brought out from the shadows in which it exists and given prominence. Gleaning is very sustainable. It is worthy of active planning as part of modern farming and inclusion in any state sponsored policy or farming funding.

Non-food Gleaning

If an item has been produced, a large amount of the environmental price has already been paid. There is still the use of the item to consider also. As an extreme example, perhaps not so extreme, an atomic bomb having been produced, it would surely be better to leave it unused. We may work down the scale from that example to more everyday items. These also have impact. The amounts of everyday items that 8 billion people use is enormous and even across the range of cultures and lifestyles, items that are produced amass in stupendous quantities.

It takes energy to convert materials and the overall equation of what goes in and what comes out is that there is net energy cost so that even re-processing materials has an environmentally based cost.

It would seem sensible in principle to first use and then recycle items. The calculations and specifications of this topic present themselves as being worthy of a whole field of study.

From Gleaning, to Packaging and Delivery

If regulation can be put in place for gleaning where industries are subsidised and produce waste or contamination, then it is a logical step to include packaging and transport as aspects of sustainability where gleaning regulation could be trialled.