via NPR tonight - 40k people show up to harvest vegetables at Colo. farm

[RainDog]

sorry, I'm probably going to be short on all the pertinent information here, but I had to post this because, when I heard this report, I started crying.

A farmer finished his harvest for the year and saw that he still had potatoes, corn, and other vegetables in the field and didn't want them to go to waste. Rather than go through contacting a food bank and putting in all the work to put the food together for transportation, so the farmer decided to offer to open his fields to anyone who wanted to "u-pick" vegetables last Saturday and Sunday.

He expected about 4 or 5 thousand people. Instead, 40 thousand people showed up. They showed up before sunrise, even tho the fields were not going to open until 9am. He had a five acre "parking area" for people and he planned to take them out to the fields on the back of flat beds. The parking lot filled up. Cars lined the highway. The farmer opened his other fields for cars to park.

In one day, those people gleaned all of his fields so he contacted the local news to tell people not to show up on Sunday. People still showed up and he had to turn them away.

It was the most stressful experience of his life, he noted.

[lapfog_1]

1. Should have charged a nominal fee like $5 a car

just to prevent a madhouse and potential food riot situation.

And the few thousand raised could have been given to a food bank or homeless shelter.

[RainDog]

2. I think the point is that people are feeling somewhat desperate

or scared or worried - this is an incredible number of people to show up for cheap food.

[lapfog_1]

5. Yes, I know. I know better than most how desperate the situation is getting.

The food riot comment is my prediction of things to come (and perhaps soon).

The rest of the world there have been a lot of food riots. I think we are about to join them.

[RainDog]

11. I think there is plenty - but it is in the hands of the few

and that's the problem - b/c the laws have been skewed to create this - it's not as tho so many wealthy people did anything other than trade pieces of paper to "earn" their wealth and pass it along to their kids - who also did nothing to earn the same.

We've had a govt that has worked to turn people against each other. The right wing cannot have any power unless they create groups to hate. The rich have used this to their advantage and now it's time for things to change.

We need people with national stature to help organize Americans to engage in direct help to others. Not as a gov. org, but within existing orgs.

I hope your situation improves soon. I'm underemployed, sending out my resume, and I've spent the last few years wondering whether it's even worth it to get up in the morning, for a variety of reasons. At this point I'm still putting on my shoes.

[babylonsister]

3. WOW! Here's a link...

Thousands Pick Up Free Vegetables On Colo. Farm
Some 40,000 Show Up At Colo. Farm To Pick Up Free Vegetables Left On Fields After Harvest

PLATTEVILLE, Colo., Nov. 23, 2008


(AP) A farm couple got a huge surprise when they opened their fields to anyone who wanted to pick up free vegetables left over after the harvest _ 40,000 people showed up.

Joe and Chris Miller's fields were picked so clean Saturday that a second day of gleaning _ the ancient practice of picking up leftover food in farm fields _ was canceled Sunday.

"Overwhelmed is putting it mildly," Chris Miller said. "People obviously need food."

She said she expected 5,000 to 10,000 people would show up Saturday to collect free potatoes, carrots and leeks. Instead, an estimated 11,000 vehicles snaked around cornfields and backed up more than two miles. About 30 acres of the 600-acre farm 37 miles north of Denver became a parking lot.

Some people parked their cars along two nearby highways to take to the field with sacks, wagons and barrels.

"Everybody is so depressed about the economy," said Sandra Justice of Greeley, who works at a technology company. "This was a pure party. Everybody having a a great time getting something for free."

more...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/23/ap/national/main4628308.shtml

[RainDog]

6. thanks for finding the link

this just touched me in a way I cannot explain.

I'm not a religious person...I'm fairly hostile to organized religion, as lots here probably know...but I grew up attending church 3x/wk and I immediately thought of the story of Ruth, who gleaned the fields to provide for her mother-in-law and herself.

I'm also from a long-line of farm families, tho I grew up in cities, and this story hit me on many levels.

Bless that farmer. I'm sure he'll never do that again, or at least not in the way he did it this time.

[Liberal_in_LA]

12. another link

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/23/AR2008112302364.html

Around the Nation


40,000 Swarm Farm To Gather Free Food


PLATTEVILLE, Colo. -- A farm couple got a huge surprise when they opened their fields to anyone who wanted to pick up free vegetables left over after the harvest -- 40,000 people showed up.

Joe and Chris Miller's fields were picked so clean Saturday that a second day of gleaning -- the ancient practice of picking up leftover food in farm fields -- was canceled Sunday. " 'Overwhelmed' is putting it mildly," Chris Miller said. "People obviously need food."

She said she expected 5,000 to 10,000 people to show up Saturday to collect free potatoes, carrots and leeks. Instead, an estimated 11,000 vehicles snaked around cornfields and backed up more than two miles. About 30 acres of the 600-acre farm 37 miles north of Denver became a parking lot.

Miller said they opened the farm to the free public harvest after hearing reports of food being stolen from churches. It was meant as a thank-you for customers.

[Lex]

4. prior DU thread (link) here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4523544&mesg_id=4523544

[RainDog]

7. oops. I wasn't on DU yesterday so I missed it.

maybe others did too.

[corpseratemedia]

8. my mother read about this and she said it reminded her

of Germany after the war, people going out into the fields to find any food, as she and her family did to get anything to eat.

She was really upset because both she and my father, a WWII POW (American), both experienced hunger and starvation.

30 years of putting the obscenely wealthy ahead at the expense of everybody else in this country is enough!

[RainDog]

9. yes, it repulses me to know that Paris Hilton walks the streets

and has millions for doing nothing while people in this nation are gleaning fields... while a guy is taking his children out of school to beg on the streets after he was laid off...

it repulses me to know that George Bush walks the halls of the White House. He should face the same fate that befell Mussolini, imo, along with Cheney, Gonzales and the rest of this despicable administration.

It repulses me to know AIG took a club med vacation after a bail out. I would not be sorry to hear that people drug them out into the streets and tarred and feathered them.

Sometimes I think something like that is the only way that the rich are going to "get it."

I don't advocate violence against anyone, but my imagination sometimes has lots of vigilantes roaming its streets.

[Maine-ah]

10. holy shit!

K&R