Cornwall farmers urged to open fields to 'gleaners' as demand grows

Volunteer Lucy Scarratt collecting excess cabbages from a farm near Newquay

Farmers in Cornwall are being urged to open their crop fields to volunteers who collect leftover vegetables for food banks.

The Gleaning Cornwall Network said demand for donated food was "rising substantially" across the county.

Gleaning is the practice of collecting excess or leftover fresh food such as cabbages and potatoes.

Volunteers collect the food and then distribute it to charities.

Volunteers collect the food and distribute it to charities

Jennie Duncan, from the network, said: "We need more farmers - if you're a farmer or a smallholder, we really desperately need your help at the moment.

"People are very hungry and we really need to keep the gleaning as an ongoing project."

The organisation said it had about 300 volunteers that collected and distributed more than 70 tonnes of produce to charities.

The Gleaning Cornwall Network sends produce to more than 60 charities

Ms Duncan said the food was "going on someone's plate" rather than being ploughed back into a field.

"It's very concerning, especially in Cornwall, how many people we are feeding.

"We send our produce out to 60 charities across the county - some of those are actually repurposing the food and making it into hot meals for people [and] that is actually rising," she added.

In June, it was revealed the number of organisations that provided food aid in Cornwall had increased from 20 to 180 in seven years.

On Tuesday, Wadebridge Foodbank opened a satellite food bank in popular tourist destination and high-end restaurant hotspot Padstow after it saw a 75% increase in referrals from the area in the past year.