Who is GIVback?
We are the Gleaning Initiative
Victoria - a new community association dedicated to fighting farm-level food
waste in Victoria.
Our goal is to create a 'gleaning'
network in the greater Melbourne region. By working directly on farms, with local
farmers, we will rescue surplus produce from going to waste by redistributing
it, for free, to people experiencing food insecurity.
What is gleaning?
Gleaning is a centuries old
practice: it is the act of gathering leftover crops from farmers' fields after
they have been commercially harvested. Historically, it is a process which
supported fair distribution of resources within communities while preventing
waste.
We've taken this idea, modernised
it and adapted it for the Victorian context: we will provide farmers with a
free way of preventing surplus produce from going to waste by harvesting
surplus produce in their fields and redistributing it to local charities that
work with people experiencing food insecurity.
Image
sourced with permission from: https://feedbackglobal.org/
The problems we’re fighting
Food waste is a massive problem in
Victoria. Melbournians generate 207kg of wasted food per person per year, which
itself uses 180 gigalitres of water, 3.6 million hectares of land to grow and
generates 1 million tonnes of greenhouse gas. There are many great
organisations (including state and local governments) campaigning to fight food
waste in the home, but this is not enough. 60% of food waste is actually
generated before it even reaches consumers, often at the farm level.
Meanwhile, rising poverty and
inequality mean that more and more people are going hungry. Last year, four
million Australians experienced food insecurity, meaning that they ran out of
food and were unable to buy more.
Gleaning creates a direct link
between the two problems: fighting food waste at a farm level, and ensuring
that the delicious, nutritious, and healthy food reaches people who need it
most.
Image
sourced with permission from: https://feedbackglobal.org/
Our plan
We have a simple five-step plan for
how we will operate:
1. The
host farmer identifies surplus produce in their fields - could be anything from
apples, to kale, to pumpkin, depending on the season! The farmers know their
fields much better than we do, so we rely on them to let us know what they have
that would otherwise go to waste
2. The
host farmer gives permission and invites GIVback to glean the surplus produce.
GIVback acts only at the invitation of the farmer and only under their
instructions
3. GIVback
assembles a team of volunteers (the gleaners) who are passionate about both
preventing food waste and ensuring food justice (and are keen to get their
hands dirty!)
4. We
lead the team on a harvest - the surplus produce is physically harvested from
the field by the gleaners.
5. The
rescued produce is then redistributed, for free, to local charities making sure
that the food reaches people who need it most.
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