By Audie Ayer
Arkansas Farm Bureau

Arkansas and New Mexico have at least one thing in common.

They’re tied with the third highest incidences of hunger in the nation. Only in Mississippi and South Carolina do more people go to bed hungry.

Now, however, a new effort is arising in Arkansas to change that. This summer, Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance and the Society of St. Andrew are starting a joint effort to recruit food producers to help feed the less fortunate. It’s called “The Gleaning Network,” and it’s an effort to combine the knowledge and infrastructure of two effective private anti-hunger agencies.

“What we need are volunteers,” says the alliance’s Michelle Shope. “Arkansas has six food banks around the state — in Fort Smith, Jonesboro, Little Rock, Norfork, Springdale and Texarkana.

“We hope to connect with farmers within an hour of each of the food banks who will let us glean their fields and orchards.”

Gleaning, the act of gathering and distributing good, unneeded food, has been around probably as long as humans have farmed. In the Bible, the book of Deuteronomy includes a command to make it possible.

“You’d be surprised at how much food we as a society waste each day,” Shope says. “Grocery stores, restaurants, all sorts of places you’d normally not think about have perfectly good food they must dispose of for one reason or another.”

The USDA says about one-fifth of the food this nation produces is wasted, either in the fields, at the retail level or elsewhere.

“Mechanically harvested fields always leave good crops behind because of size variation or whatever. We’d like to find farmers who will let volunteers come and remove (those leftovers). If we can find food outlets — processors, bakeries, supermarkets and so on — that are willing to give us their extra food, that would be great, too.

“We’ll take care of getting it to the people who need it.”

Shope says by merging efforts, the Society of St. Andrew is dovetailing its almost 30 year’s worth of knowledge with Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance’s infrastructure.

“They have the contacts,” she says, “and we have the distribution network.”

Current economic conditions are affecting anti-hunger efforts throughout the United States, and Shope says Arkansas is no different.

“Food donations are down, and we therefore need to be more efficient in our gleaning activities.

Those interested in either donating unused food or helping with the gleaning of the food itself may get information either from the Society of St. Andrew Web site for Arkansas at www.endhunger.org/arkansas.htm or from Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance at 501-399-9999, www.arhungeralliance.org.