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November 18, 2025 | Source: Civil Eats | by Elena Valeriote
It was too much of a good thing that brought a dozen volunteers to Wild Roots Farm in Troutdale, Oregon, on a blue-sky day in the middle of August. As the sun rose over the farm’s 1.5 acres, the volunteers began to harvest surplus basil, tomatoes, and zucchini.
Each crop had its own unique reason for being left in the field. More basil had flourished than could be sold; the tomatoes showed minor blossom-end rot from summer rain; and the zucchini was, by restaurant standards, oversize. For the farmer, it would have been more work than it was worth to harvest.
Not so for the gleaners.
Urban Gleaners, a Portland-based nonprofit, hosts weekly harvests at this farm. It then makes the surplus produce—plus excess food collected from supermarkets, restaurants, universities, corporate campuses, and event sites—accessible to community members through 47 distribution points, including 24 free-food markets throughout the city.
The post With Hunger on the Rise, Urban Gleaners Seek to Strengthen Local Food Security appeared first on Organic Consumers.
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