Gleaners harvest potatoes at Freeville research farm

Robin Bellinder (right) and volunteers harvest potatoes for food aid programs at the Homer C. Thompson Vegetable Research Farm, Freeville, N.Y.
Robin Bellinder (right) and volunteers harvest potatoes for food aid programs at the Homer C. Thompson Vegetable Research Farm, Freeville, N.Y.
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.

View Ithaca Journal video.

Farm manager Steve McKay digs potatoes ahead of the gleaners.
Farm manager Steve McKay digs potatoes ahead of the gleaners.

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