GLEANING

'Gleaning' is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been mechanically harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. In some ancient cultures, gleaning was promoted by requiring farmers not to reap all the way to the edges of a field, but to leave some for the poor and the stranger (). Often gleaning is practiced by humanitarian groups such as the U.S.'s nationwide gleaning ministry of the Society of St. Andrew, which not only gather the crops but then 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. In the Soviet Union gleaning was punished with death or 10 years of forced labor since August 7, 1932.^[1]
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.
Gleaning is represented in the painting ''Les Glaneuses'' (1857) by Jean-François Millet.
Agnes Varda's 2000 documentary film "The Gleaners and I" explores gleaning from the perspective of French rural people.

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See also

References

External links

See also

★ Dumpster diving

References

1. Law of Spikelets

External links

★ Mid-Atlantic Gleaning Network

★ MAGNET:MidAtlantic Gleaning Network

★ Society of St. Andrew