Gleaning

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The Gleaners by Jean-François Millet, 1857

Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops in the field after harvest. During harvest, there is food that is left or missed often because it does not meet store standards for uniformity. Sometimes, fields are left because they were not economically profitable to harvest.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="HusseyGleaning">Template:Cite journal</ref> In modern times, gleaning is used to provide fresh foods to those in need. "Dumpster diving", when done for food or culinary ingredients, is seen as a similar form of food recovery.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> There are multiple organizations that support gleaning, including the Gleaning Network in the UK, and the National Gleaning Project in the United States.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref> Both organizations have worked on national networks to connect modern gleaning and food recovery organizations.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

History

The term glean was first used in English in the 14th Century, and meant both "to gather grain or other produce left by reapers" and "to gather information or material bit by bit".<ref name=":2">Template:Cite web</ref> It has roots in Middle English (glenen), Anglo-French (glener), and Late Latin (glen(n)ō (“make a collection).<ref name=":2" /> Gleaning is referred to throughout history, including biblical references in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.<ref name="HusseyGleaning" /> Gleaning has long been a part of agricultural calendar and process, and was practiced widely by the rural poor during the 16th and 17th Centuries. Additionally, as much as one-eighth of labour-based households' annual earnings came from gleaning in the 18th and 19th Centuries.<ref name="HusseyGleaning" /> Technology of the mid-19th Century would heavily reduce gleaning globally.Template:Cn

In the Bible

Template:Primary sources According to the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, farmers should leave the edges of their fields unharvested (pe'ah), should not pick up that which was dropped (gleanings), and should not harvest any overlooked produce that had been forgotten when they harvested the majority of a field.<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref><ref name="Lev2322">Template:Bibleverse</ref><ref name="Duet2419">Template:Bibleverse</ref> On one of the two occasions that this is stated in Leviticus, it adds that in vineyards, some grapes should be left ungathered,<ref name="Lev1910">Template:Bibleverse</ref> a statement also found in Deuteronomy.<ref name="Deu2421">Template:Bibleverse</ref>

These verses additionally command that olive trees should not be beaten on multiple occasions, and whatever remains from the first set of beatings should be left.<ref name="Deu2420">Template:Bibleverse</ref> According to Leviticus, these things should be left for the poor and for strangers,<ref name="Lev2322" /><ref name="Lev1910" /> and Deuteronomy commands that it should be left for widows, strangers, and paternal orphans.<ref name="Duet2419" /><ref name="Deu2421" /><ref name="Deu2420" /> The Book of Ruth tells of gleaning by the widow Ruth to provide for herself and her mother-in-law, Naomi, who was also a widow.<ref name="Rut22">Template:Bibleverse</ref>

Rabbinical view

In classical rabbinic literature, it was argued that the biblical regulations concerning left-overs only applied to grain fields, orchards, and vineyards.<ref>Template:Jewish Encyclopedia</ref> The farmer was not permitted to benefit from the gleanings, and was not permitted to discriminate among the poor, nor try to frighten them away with dogs or lions;<ref name="Hull131a">Hullin 131a</ref><ref name="Peah56">Pe'ah 5:6</ref><ref name="MaMiTo411">Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, 4:11</ref> the farmer was not even allowed to help one of the poor to gather the left-overs.<ref name="Hull131a" /><ref name="Peah56" /><ref name="MaMiTo411" /> However, it was also argued that the law was only applicable in Canaan,<ref>Pe'ah 2:5 (Palestinian Talmud)</ref> although many classical rabbinic writers, who were based in Babylon, applied the laws there too;<ref>Hullin 134b</ref><ref>Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, 1:14</ref> it was also seen as only applying to Jewish paupers, but poor gentiles were allowed to benefit for the sake of civil peace.<ref>Gittin 59b</ref>

Historic European practice

Gleaning by Arthur Hughes

In many parts of Europe, including England and France, the Biblically derived right to glean the fields was reserved for the poor; a right, enforceable by law, that continued in parts of Europe into modern times.<ref name=HusseyGleaning/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 18th century England, gleaning was a legal right for "cottagers", or landless residents. In a small village the sexton would often ring a church bell at eight o'clock in the morning and again at seven in the evening to tell the gleaners when to begin and end work.<ref>L W Cowrie (1996) Dictionary of British Social History Wordsworth Reference p.130 Template:ISBN</ref> This legal right effectively ended after the Steel v Houghton decision in 1788.

Modern times

Impoverished Germans gleaning in 1956

Gleaning events occur wherever food is in excess. In addition to supermarkets, gleaning can also occur at farms in the field. Volunteers, called gleaners, visit a farm where the farmer donates what is left in their fields to collect and donate to a food bank. In New York State in 2010, this form of gleaning alone rescued 3.6 million pounds of fruits and vegetables.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

When people glean and distribute food, they do so at their peril; in the Soviet Union, the Law of Spikelets (sometimes translated "law on gleaning")<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> criminalised gleaning, under penalty of death, or 10 years of forced labour in exceptional circumstances.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In the U.S., the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act of 1996 limited the liability of donors to instances of gross negligence or intentional misconduct, alleviating gleaning from much of the risk that was allegedly hampering the delivery of surplus food from restaurants and dining facilities to emergency food centers. The law preempts state Good Samaritan Acts, that provide less protection.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The Shulchan Aruch argues that Jewish farmers are no longer obliged to obey the biblical rule.<ref>Shulchan Aruk, Yoreh De'ah 332:1</ref> Nevertheless, in modern Israel, rabbis of Orthodox Judaism insist that Jews allow gleanings to be consumed by the poor and by strangers during Sabbatical years.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On the island of Bali, traditional law allows fruit from a tree to be picked by the passerby from the ground—even if the tree is on privately owned land.Template:Citation needed

Currently, gleaning is often practiced by humanitarian and social groups<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> which distribute the gleaned food to the poor and hungry; in a modern context, this can include the collection of food from supermarkets at the end of the day that would otherwise be thrown away. There are a number of organizations that practice gleaning to resolve issues of societal hunger; the Society of St. Andrew and the Boston Area Gleaners, for example.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In the United States there are also laws that support and sanction gleaning and the National Gleaning Project, created by the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School connected modern gleaning and food recovery organizations across the United States while providing related policy and law resources, and examples of handbooks, waivers, and other documents organizations may utilize.<ref name=":1" /> These laws allow corporations to receive grants for the use of gleaning, mandates the agriculture sector to financially sustain gleaning nationally, and sanctions the distribution of the vegetables harvested from gleaning.<ref name=":1" /> In 2020, there were 143 gleaning organizations in the United States and Canada combined, harvesting anywhere from 163,000-5.2 million pounds of food gleaned in the year.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Gleaning in art

Gleaning was a popular subject in art, especially in the nineteenth century. Gleaning in rural France has been represented in the paintings Des Glaneuses (1857) by Jean-François Millet and Le rappel des glaneuses (1859) by Jules Breton, and explored in a 2000 documentary/experimental film, The Gleaners and I, by Agnès Varda.<ref>Callenbach, Ernest. "The Gleaners and I (Les Glaneurs Et La Glaneuse)". Film Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 2 (2002): 46–49. Template:Doi</ref> Vincent van Gogh's sketch of a Peasant Woman Gleaning in Nuenen, The Netherlands (1885) is in the Charles Clore collection.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Woolgathering

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Gathering Wool by Henry Herbert La Thangue

Woolgathering is a practice similar to gleaning, but for wool. The practice was of collecting bits of wool that had gotten caught on bushes and fences or fallen on the ground as sheep passed by. The meandering perambulations of a woolgatherer give rise to the idiomatic sense of the word as meaning aimless wandering of the mind.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Fishing

Gleaning in a seagrass meadow<ref name=Nessa2019 />

Along marine coastlines, gleaning has been defined as "fishing with basic gear, including bare hands, in shallow water not deeper than that one can stand".<ref name=Nordlund2018>Nordlund, L.M., Unsworth, R.K., Gullström, M. and Cullen‐Unsworth, L.C. (2018) "Global significance of seagrass fishery activity. Fish and Fisheries", 19(3): 399–412. Template:Doi. Material was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.</ref> Invertebrate gleaning (walking) fisheries are common within coastal (intertidal) ecosystems globally, contributing to the food supply of coastal communities.<ref name=Nessa2019>Nessa, N., Ambo-Rappe, R., Cullen-Unsworth, L.C. and Unsworth, R.K.F. (2019) "Social-ecological drivers and dynamics of seagrass gleaning fisheries". Ambio, pages 1–11. Template:Doi. </ref><ref>Aldea, K.Q. (2023) ‘Macroinvertebrate gleaning in coastal ecosystems: utilization, pressures, and implications for conservation’, AACL Bioflux, 16(3), pp. 1331-1345. Available at: http://www.bioflux.com.ro/docs/2023.1331-1345.pdf. Material was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.</ref><ref>Stiepani, J., Sandig, A. and Blicharska, M. (2023) ‘The Where, the How, and the Why of the gleaning fishery: Livelihoods, food security, threats and management on the island of Malalison, Philippines’, Ocean & Coastal Management, 244, p. 106806. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2023.106806.</ref><ref>Stiepani, J., Jiddawi, N. and Mtwana Nordlund, L. (2023) ‘Social-ecological system analysis of an invertebrate gleaning fishery on the island of Unguja, Zanzibar’, Ambio, 52(1), pp. 140–154. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-022-01769-1.</ref><ref>Stiepani, J. (2024) ‘Changing Coastlines of the Indo-Pacific : Local livelihoods and use of ecosystem resources from a social-ecological systems perspective’. Available at: https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-526284 (Accessed: 7 May 2024).</ref>

Ecological gleaning

The term gleaning is also applied to modes of feeding which involve taking food from surfaces. For example, in Australia pardalotes (small songbirds) are renowned for their feeding on lerps, scale insects on Eucalyptus sp. leaves.Template:Fact

Many fish forage by picking off small food items from hard surfaces, another example of ecological gleaning.

See also

References

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