It was a ‘positive’ day of gleaning in the Allaer Farms pepper field, just outside of Wallaceburg, on Tuesday.
‘Captain Positive’ and ‘OptiWoman’ made an appearance to help celebrate Agriculture Day, the second day in the municipal-wide ’12 Days of Positivity’ movement.
“There is a special group here and they are doing something that I have never heard of before,” Jason King, a.k.a ‘Captain Positive’, told the Sydenham Current.
“They are gleaning. Gleaning is an unbelievable thing. There is a very generous farmer by the name of Kurtis (Allaer.) He has donated the rest of his field and volunteers come in and pick the rest of the remaining good crop and donate it to food banks, soup kitchens. This is unbelievable. It’s great.”
‘OptiWoman’ said the pepper picking was making her hungry.
“There is a lot of really good food here that is going to be going to a very good cause instead of back under the ground,” said Megan Caniff, a.k.a OptiWoman.
“I think this is just a wonderful organization. Definitely something I want to get to know more about.”
‘Captain Positive’ said stopping at Allaer’s farm coincided perfectly with the ’12 Days of Positivity’ movement.
“Today being agricultural day, we are super pumped to be out here,” he said.
“We are super charged up. This is a big group. This isn’t a small group of people. This is unbelievable and they are looking for more fields for glean. So if you know anyone who has a farmers field or if there is a farmers field and he is willing to let them come on his field, that means more food for the food banks and the soup kitchens and that makes everybody happy.”
What exactly is gleaning?
The Chatham-Kent Food Policy Council has been working over the last year to create a gleaning program, aimed at giving the community a way to use any extra fruits and vegetables.
“Gleaning is an initiative that helps to increase food availability, food access and food use by collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested, or collecting produce from fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest,” Food Policy Council officials said.
“This is always done with the permission of the grower. Additionally, members of the community may have a fruit tree on their property or a large garden that has extra produce. These are all opportunities for gleaning to occur.”
The Vision of the CK Gleaning Project is: “Equipping people to rescue surplus produce from fields and gardens and their mission is: Connecting food producers who have surplus produce with neighbours and community food programs through relationship building, experiential learning and volunteer engagement.”
Lyndsay Davidson, a public health dietitian with the Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit, told the Sydenham Current if people are interested in joining the gleaning program, they can go on the Chatham-Kent Food Policy website, here.
“We have a short training program that we need them to do so that when they go out they are safe in the fields,” Davidson said.
“We basically just send emails out whenever we get requests from farmers. The biggest thing right now is that we have about 35 gleaners that are ready to go, we just need more farmers to continue to allow us to come out.
Davidson added: “All of the produce goes out to local food banks, soup kitchens and community groups that use all of it. So whether they give it out directly at the food bank or whether it is a soup kitchen and they process it all down and use it for meals throughout the year. The gleaners are able to take a small amount when they leave as well.”
Davidson said she was thrilled to be out in the Allaer Farms pepper field on Lambton Line, right at the end of Forhan Street.
“Kurtis actually was a member of our Food Policy Council and this was one of the things that he was really passionate about and wanted to increase access in the community,” she said.
“He wanted to make sure that all of the stuff that he was ploughing under, had a place to go. Really, it was kind of his idea to come up with and then the Food Policy Council ran with it. This is our second year that we have been doing it.”
Davidson the farmers involved with the program have been great, and they are always looking for more.
“Without their support and letting us come out and do the gleaning, we wouldn’t be able to do this and we wouldn’t be able to get extra produce back into our community.”
Spreading the word to other farmers
Allaer told the Sydenham Current it was a shame to see many perfectly good vegetables get ploughed under each season.
“I have been farming for over 10 years now and on my farm with my father, my uncle and my cousin. We grow a lot of processing vegetables and that is what we have here. They are vegetables for a processor,” he said.
“The food system today is ‘bigger agriculture’ and there is certain customer specs that you have to meet to supply them with product. So whether it is colour, size or shape, that is what the customer demands. So there is a lot of stuff that ends up getting ploughed under because it doesn’t meet those specs and that’s fine. That is just the business of farming, but it is sad to see all that stuff get ploughed under.”
Allaer said he knew there were many food banks and similar organizations all across Chatham-Kent.
“Every time I tell someone they can come to my field and come pick a couple of baskets of peppers they are just thrilled,” he said.
“So I thought, well maybe we can get something bigger going here and I talked to the Chatham-Kent Food Policy Council about it and they had the idea of a gleaning crew that can go out when a farmer has stuff that they know they are just going to plough under, and after a quick phone call or message to Lyndsay and her team, within two days they are out there picking and filling their baskets.”
Allaer added: “It is a small drop in the bucket, but at least you have donated something. It seems like the people that receive all this stuff really appreciate it and I mean it disappears fast at the food banks and wherever else they are giving it away. So it must be popular.”
Allaer said he hopes more farmers will get involved with the gleaning program as well.
“That is probably the biggest job right now for this gleaning group, is to try and spread the word because I think there is a lot of farmers that would participate, but they don’t know about it,” he said.
“If they were aware of it and it was relatively easy for them to participate, I think there would be a lot of stuff available. A lot more than what we are doing right now.”
For more information about the program, contact Davidson at lyndsayd@chatham-kent.ca or by phone at 519-352-7270 ext. 2478.
Learn more about Positivity Day in C-K, here.
– Photo credit: Aaron Hall
actually gleaning is not such an unbelievable thing, it was done in the Old Testament . Ruth and her mother in law gleaned the fields of Boaz. so yes it is nice to see an age old practice renewed.