Every Last Grain
Caz Graham meets the modern-day gleaners. Following behind the combine harvesters they find the vegetables and grains that the big machinery misses, cutting down on waste.
Gleaning - or collecting crops that have been left behind after the harvest so they're not wasted - goes back to Biblical texts but it's making a comeback. Gleaning Networks have been established in the USA, Canada and across Europe to reduce food waste and provide fresh vegetables for people who might not otherwise be able to afford them.
Peter Ascroft grows 200 acres of cauliflowers in Lancashire and every year he invites the North West Gleaning Network onto his farm to harvest surplus crop and vegetables that don't quite make the grade for the supermarket shelves. Caz Graham joins Peter and the gleaners out in the field, hears about the growth of gleaning in the UK and follows 2 tonnes of cauliflowers to a warehouse in Preston for redistribution to Lancashire charities.
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- Sun 13 Aug 2017 06:35Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4