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The Local Food Report
As we re-imagine our relationships to what we eat, Local Food Report creator Elspeth Hay takes us to the heart of the local food movement to talk with growers, harvesters, processors, cooks, policy makers and visionaries

Gleaning Gets Local Food to Those in Need

Elspeth Hay

Gleaning is an ancient practice, as old as the Torah. It means to gather leftover grain or other produce from farm fields after a harvest, and traditionally was a form of charity. In most places, the tradition has died out. But today on Martha's Vineyard thanks to a program called Island Grown Gleaning, it's alive and well. This week on the Local Food Report, Elspeth Hay attends a potato glean with a group of eighth graders from West Tisbury.

You can learn more about Island Grown Gleaning and their parent organization Island Grown Initiative on their website. And you can see more pictures of the kids in action on Elspeth's blog, Diary of a Locavore.

Elspeth Hay is a writer and the creator and host of the Local Food Report, a weekly feature that has aired on CAI since 2008. Deeply immersed in her own local-food system, she writes and reports for print, radio, and online media with a focus on food, the environment, and the people, places, and ideas that feed us.