Food Recovery Practitioner Presentation for the Sonoma County 2018 Zero Waste Forum .

1. Sustaining Communities
through Food Recovery
Petaluma Bounty: Gleaning and Community
Resilience through Food

2. Who we are:
A community food
security project
transforming the food
system through access,
education, engagement
and empowerment.

3. The Bounty In Action
Internships, Job Training, Volunteering, Community Events,
Educational Visits, and lots of healthy food!

4. Food Insecurity In Sonoma County
Community members
miss around 30 million
meals, annually.
Approximately 1 in 6
experience food
insecurity regularly.
For children, it’s more
like 1 in 4.
Source: Hunger Index,
Sonoma County Dept.
Human Services

5. How Gleaning Fits into our Mission
• Definition: To gather (leftover grain or other produce) after a harvest.
• Goal: Improve the quality and increase the quantity of fresh produce distributed
through emergency food outlets in the Petaluma Area.
• History- First Program in 2006. Redistributed over 650,000 pounds.
• Current Activities:
1. Bounty Hunters Gleaning Network
2. Education/Convening
3. Advocacy/Policy Work

6. 1. Bounty
Hunters
Gleaning
Network

8. 2. Educating
Consumers,
Growers,
Volunteers,
Emergency
Food
Distributors
and Recipients
about what we
all can do.

9. 3. Advocacy and Policy Work
• Founding member of Sonoma
County Food Recovery Coalition
• Provided crucial input on AB 234
which led to the strengthening of
the CA Good Samaritan Food Law
(AB 1219)
• Advocate for community food
security to regulators and
lawmakers and translate legalese to
community groups

10. Problems We Face
• Lack of consistent funding for a paid
coordinator
• Increased regulatory burdens
• Awareness raising- problems &
solutions
• Values shift conversations

11. Values Shift
Equivocating food waste prevention to
food recovery
Proposing a shared goal: Improving diet quality
while reducing environmental impacts of our
unsustainable food system (including waste) and
improving the economic viability of farmers.

12. Values Shift
Reinvigorating the Sharing Ethic
If your garden or fruit tree is providing more than you can eat, consider taking the following action:
1. Preserve, dehydrate, make stock. Don’t know how? Consider a workshop or having a Preserving Party!
2. Share with friends, family, neighbors.
3. Share (or barter) with your networks- Homegrown Guild, CropMobster, Nextdoor, freecycle, Fallen Fruit
etc.
4. Harvest and deliver to a community donation drop site, pantry, food bank.
5. Attend or host a produce exchange.
6. Call a local gleaning group and ask them to harvest if you are physically unable to do so.
7. Put out a free box
8. Remember your neighborhood chickens, rabbits, goats, etc. as they would love your greens.
9. Neighborly composting schemes.
10. Petaluma Green Bins

13. Values Shift
Devaluing food in
our culture leads to
waste being an
acceptable, albeit
lamentable reality at
all stages of the
food system.

14. Value Shift
Fig. A) Percent of all
harvested cropland
wasted by category,
Fig. B) Percent of each
type of harvested
cropland wasted. Total
cropland wasted =
30.02 million acres
(95% CI: 29.29–30.76
million acres),
representing 7.7% (7.5–
7.9%) of total harvested
cropland.
Source: “Relationship
between food waste, diet
quality, and
environmental
sustainability”
Conrad, Z.
http://journals.plos.org
Revaluing our
food includes
revaluing our
waste.

15. What you can do
• Volunteer with a gleaning organization in
your region
• Donate- $, time, produce, ideas
• Raise awareness within your community
• Engage in critical thinking about values,
waste, recovery, and the sharing ethic
Contact- suzi@petalumabounty.org
www.petalumabounty.org