Gleaning Cornwall

Aim

We need funding to continue to reduce on farm food waste and feed people in need healthy, fresh produce via our distribution network.

• WHAT IS GLEANING? - It is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields or other sources of food recovery. Gleaning is mentioned in The Bible and is notably one of the first forms of social welfare systems.
• WHAT DOES GLEANING CORNWALL DO? - We harvest or just sort through and pack, surplus or out-graded (that's produce which is the wrong size or shape), fresh fruit and veg, with teams of dedicated volunteers, and distribute it, for free, to over 50 food banks, community larders and community kitchens in Cornwall & west Devon.
• WHAT IS OUR IMPACT? - Last year we saved the 50+ food charities we regularly serve, £160,000 by providing nearly 90 tonnes of fruit and veg, and spared the environment some 218 tonnes of CO2e, (green house gasses).
  
• WHY IS GLEANING CORNWALL THE BIGGEST GLEANING GROUP IN EUROPE? - We grow a lot of veg due to our mild climate and are one of the most generous, community focused parts of the UK that has a passion for the environment.
• WHY DO WE NEED YOUR MONEY? -We  wish to continue what we are doing to ensure healthy food is available to those in need. Sometimes charitable food organisations struggle for fresh produce locally. We have been going since 2021 and has a great group of regular volunteers but we need more as needs are great and there is much to do! We therefore need to employ someone to promote what we do at events, to groups, to businesses and to suitable organisations. Also for volunteer recruitment through social media, other websites, newspapers, magazines and through networking. 
• WHY IS THIS GOOD FOR THE CLIMATE? Most things require energy, including food production. Our vegetables start as a seed, that have been cultivated, harvested, packaged, transported, then grown into mini plant-plugs in compost in large greenhouses and then transported to the fields. These are planted using a machine that has been produced using lots of different raw materials from around the globe and fuelled by diesel. The ground in usually cultivated and when soil is exposed to light, it loses some CO2. The growers may use fertilisers and artificial chemicals, which all have to be produced, often creating relatively high amounts of green house gasses and then these heavy materials are transported and mechanically applied, all adding yet more of a carbon footprint to that vegetable! It seems very wrong to then waste that veg. and all the green house gasses that it's production created. 
• WHAT IS THE NEED IN CORNWALL? - Local food charities, are vitally helping to feed over 12,000 people, suffering food insecurity, each week. The cost of living crisis has not gone away and is exacerbated by the housing crisis and lower than average wages in Cornwall.   One fifth of children in Cornwall live in poverty and 13% of households here suffer food insecurity.  
• WHO ARE WE HELPING WITH FOOD? - The majority of the food we donate feeds working families and the elderly but some of our recipient organisations are feeding people who have suffered a financial shock, veterans, the homeless, people sheltering from abuse, and some recipients are either mentally &/or physically unwell.
• WHY IS THERE SO MUCH FOOD WASTED IN CORNISH FIELDS? - Most farmers have to over-produce in order to ensure they can fulfil their contracts. Because crops grow at varying rates and labour is expensive, farmers have to choose one or two optimum times to harvest, but some of the crop will have got too big or not be ready then. Occasionally also a buyer reneges on their contract or a crop may not be up to standard.
• WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF GLEANING CORNWALL? - 

1) We help food charities that are struggling with free, healthy, fresh produce, which they often find difficult to source otherwise.

2) Coordinators and volunteers alike enjoy communal, outdoor exercise that has purpose.

3) By reducing food waste, we reduce green house gas emissions.

4) Farmers don't like waste and are happy to help their community.

5) We have all learnt a lot about where our food comes from and how to better prepare and cook local, seasonal produce.

6) We help connect food charities so they can better support each other.

7) The map on our website is used widely and helps people in crisis find, and organisations signpost others to, relevant support.                                                                                                                                

NOTE - Any help you can give will be very carefully spent.

Thank you so, so much.

Very warm wishes from

The Cornish Gleaners XXX                                                                        Please share!

PS- We are incredibly grateful to all the the kind farmers who support us. They not only have low prices to contend with but are also having to cope with an increasingly challenging, changing climate & a complicated, sporadic new government subsidy system, so please buy local whenever you can!

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made