Gleaning

Gleaning is the collection of leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been mechanically harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. Often gleaning is practiced by humanitarian groups which 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.

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.

The practice of gleaning is thousands of years old; it is mentioned several times in the Bible, in Leviticus 23:22:And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the LORD your God." (KJV)

Deuteronomy 24:19 is very similar.

We see gleaning as an early poverty program in the Book of Ruth 2:2-3::And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said unto her, Go, my daughter. And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers: and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech. (KJV)

Jesus and his disciples may have been gleaners. From Mark 2:23::And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. (KJV)

Gleaning is a basis for Paul's seemingly harsh injunction in 2 Thessalonians 3:10:For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." (KJV)