Dozens of volunteers descended on the Homer C. Thompson Vegetable Research Farm in Freeville, N.Y., to harvest about 5 tons of potatoes bound for food aid programs run by Food Bank of the Southern Tier. (See Dozens volunteer their time to make a difference Saturday, Ithaca Journal, October 28, 2012.)
“Robin Bellinder, a horticulture professor at Cornell, said a move to larger [research] plots in 1998 meant many leftovers once the science projects concluded. ‘The idea of just throwing it into a compost pile made me very unhappy,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to feed people.’”
Since 1998, the farm, run by the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station, has donated more than 1 million pounds of food.