Climate change. Wasted food. Hunger. Together we can fight all three. Wasted food is a key cause of the climate crisis because decaying food releases methane, leading to global warming. If global food waste were a country, it would rank third in greenhouse gas emissions after China and the United States. Yet one in five people in Marin County worries about where their next meal will come from. Here, a lack of food is not the problem; distribution is the problem.
West Marin Climate Action, in partnership with a network of local organizations, is working to address the distribution problem by strengthening our local foodshed while advancing equity and building community resilience.
Residential gleaning—gathering high-quality surplus produce from local gardens and orchards—helps close the gap between those who have food and those who don’t. Excess food can be distributed to those who need it most, increasing equitable access to healthy, fresh food. By working together and working locally, we can both mitigate some of the effects of climate change and provide for our community.
Who are the players in our local foodshed? First, our food producers: local farmers and ranchers, food preservers and food purveyors, as well as folks growing food at home. The consumers are those who either buy food directly from local producers or through retail establishments. To close the food equity gap, in 2020, organizational partners with food systems expertise—including Innovative Health Solutions, ExtraFood, the U.C. Cooperative Extension, the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, Marin County Health and Human Services and others—formed the West Marin Food Systems Group. Together with West Marin Climate Action, all four food pantries in West Marin, all four of our school districts, and key older-adult sites, these partners began to bridge our geographic expanse and focus on food recovery.
Today, we have glean team leads for Bolinas and Stinson Beach, for Point Reyes and Inverness, and for the San Geronimo Valley. The glean teams coordinate with ExtraFood, a Marin-based group that aims to end hunger and wasted food in the Bay Area through a regional food recovery program. Share the Bounty, an innovative program launched by a local family, works with ExtraFood to organize the countywide gleaning program. Our local glean teams have extended these programs to West Marin.
Last year, West Marin Climate Action and West Marin Food Systems initiated a local gleaning project focusing on residential gardens and orchards. The project supplements gleaning opportunities that were already available through local farms. We delivered fresh, local produce to the food pantries at West Marin Community Services, the San Geronimo Valley Community Center and the Bolinas Community Center, and to West Marin School, the Bolinas-Stinson School, Nicasio School and Lagunitas School. At the Shoreline Harvest Festival, we pressed about 50 gallons of cider from donated apples and poured more than 400 delicious servings for attendees. We also shared extra food with Walnut Place and Marin County case managers who work with homebound seniors. Over 3,330 pounds of fruits and vegetables were harvested and distributed in 2023. This year, we will continue to strengthen the regional network to include Tomales and Dillon Beach.
How can you help? Do you have a productive fruit tree or vegetable garden overflowing with squash, kale or apples? Are you able to plant extra to share? Do you want to donate surplus harvest to people who don’t have gardens of their own or who are facing food insecurity? You can request a pickup of produce you have already harvested, or you can request volunteers to harvest for you.
Ready to get your hands dirty? Volunteer to be part of the West Marin Glean Team to either donate, pick or deliver produce locally. Once you’re registered as a volunteer, you’ll get a notification when there’s local produce available for picking. If you’re available to help, you’ll convene with other volunteers to harvest the food. You can also volunteer to deliver healthy produce to a local food pantry or other organization that can distribute it to those who need it. Our aim is to distribute the food as close as possible to where it was grown, reducing our food’s carbon footprint and building a resilient local foodshed.
West Marin Climate Action invites you to learn more and participate. To offer surplus produce or to join the West Marin Glean Team, go to westmarinclimateaction.org, select Local Food Action and then click on “volunteer for Glean Team.” There’s also a direct link here: https://extrafood.org/programs/gleaning_sharethebounty/. Thank you for being a part of the local food-climate solution!
Julie Liss is a novice gardener and the Point Reyes and Inverness glean team lead who lives in Inverness Park. Madeline Nieto Hope is a community organizer who co-facilitates the West Marin Food Systems Group and West Marin Climate Action’s Local Food Group. She lives in Point Reyes Station.