Gleaning Stories, Gleaning Change

Mark Adamek, Tanimura & Antle Field Manager

Mark took us to the field and showed us how to cut the lettuce heads. This was a conventional field, though T&A grows organically in about 30% of its fields. In addition to their Salinas Valley fields ( lettuces, broccoli, cauliflower, and onions, for the most part), they grow lettuce hydroponically in Tennesee, asparagus in Mexico, and shift their whole California operation to Arizona in the winter, driving caravans of trucks, equipment, and workers across the desert and back.

Mark gave me a thumbnail account of the long-term relationship of the Tanimura and Antle families that spanned the WWII internment of the Tanimura family and continues today.

They have to be very careful about contamination in the fields. A bird dropping found on a plant means they can't harvest within a several foot radius of that plant. So, they keep field refuse out in the open away from the fields to lure birds there instead of into productive and valuable fields.

Tanimura and Antle's winter fields in Arizona are near trailer parks and retirement communities where the "Snowbirds" live or winter. "You spill a load on the road," says Mark, "and they're like ants at a picnic. It's gone!" And growers have to be careful of human contamination in the fields, too.

T&A tries to get produce from field to table in six days or less. For East Coast consumers, that's tough. And that's why they end up giving so much already harvested and even packaged produce to food banks ... in addition to letting Ag Against Hunger organize gleans in their fields.

Podcast

Mark Adamek's story "Snowbirds Like Ants"