Gleaning in California
Gleaning is not a right in California, as it is in much of Europe. Legal gleaning requires the cooperation of field owners.
Liabilities
Commercial growers must prevent unauthorized access to their fields to escape a range of liabilities. Recent Salmonella and E. coli contaminations of leaf vegetables have reinforced growers' need to enforce strict safety standards (e.g., hair nets, sterilized gloves and knives, no water or food in the fields) on gleaners and paid harvesters alike.
Even overflying birds are threats to food safety. Harvesting is prohibited within a certain radius of any bird droppings, which has prompted some growers to leave garbage piles near, but separate from, their fields to attract birdlife there.
And worker safety is mandated, as well.
Good Samaritan Protections in US Law
To protect growers who allow gleaning and gleaners who donate food to food banks and the like, the Congress and state legislatures have passed Good Samaritan laws. The purpose of these laws is to protect farmers from liability claims of gleaners who are injured in the fields and to protect food donors (farmers or gleaners, though the law was written to protect field owners) from liability claims of recipients of donated food.
Text of federal Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act (from USDA)
USDA
Gleaning Crops Factsheet [
30KB]
Field Worker Safety
There is also extensive law protecting field workers who work for growers.
Partially Funded by the California Council for the Humanities, UC Santa Cruz, and INTA - TrainingWeal.