Cornell shares bounty of fruits and vegetables with local food banks

By Susan S. Lang

It's mid-November and with the harvest coming in and Thanksgiving up ahead, many of us are thinking about feasts, festivities and the fun-filled, food-laden holidays ahead.

For those less fortunate, more than 100,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables from Cornell are coming their way; the university will donate more than 50 tons of produce this year to local food banks and food distribution centers.

David Becker, a technician at the Homer C. Thompson Research Farm in Freeville, loads donated potatoes into a truck from the Food Bank of the Southern Tier last month. Photo courtesy of Craig Cramer

"We are delighted to be able to provide the local food distribution networks with healthy fruits and vegetables," said Marvin Pritts, chair of the Department of Horticulture at Cornell. "These products from our research are mostly produced with public funds, so we are returning a share back to the public as good stewards of our resources. Improving the lives of New Yorkers through education is our primary mission, but contributing in a direct, tangible way through food donations is yet another way we can make a difference."

For example, Robin Bellinder, professor of horticulture at Cornell, has donated 40,000 pounds of fresh produce each year for the four past years to Syracuse and Southern Tier food banks. Faculty members, such as Chris Wein, Anusuya Rangarajan and Donald Halseth, also in horticulture, have donated their crops to the Food Bank of the Southern Tier and the local Friendship Donations Network. The bounty from their department includes sweet corn, red beets, cabbage, melons, potatoes, dry beans, lettuce, onions and pumpkins from research plots at Cornell's Freeville farm.

"All told, the final weight of vegetables from the Department of Horticulture was between 94,000 and 96,000 pounds last year," said Bellinder. "This produce helps the food banks in two ways: First, it's free and doesn't need to be paid for by their accounts; second, they don't have to pay for shipping. Because the source is local, the only cost is gas and driver."

Adding to the vegetable bounty were 200 bushels of apples (about 4.5 tons) and 200 gallons of apple cider donated to local food banks by the Cornell Orchards, 945 gallons of milk from the Cornell Dairy that went to the Friendship Donations Network last year and 400 bushels of high-quality, commercial-grade potatoes donated last year by the Department of Plant Breeding for local food banks through the Food Bank of the Southern Tier, said Ken Paddock, research support specialist in the department. If yields are decent this year, Paddock said they'll be able to give away 600 bushels (36,000 pounds, or 18 tons) this year.

Cornell raises a variety of crops to evaluate varieties in response to different growth conditions. In Bellinder's case, for example, the bulk of the produce that was donated comes from a large multi-year, multi-crop rotation study with very large plots to evaluate changes in weed seedbank populations with different weed management strategies over a five-year period.

Although faculty members have been donating produce here and there for years, in the past few years, donations have increased.

"The difference is that both the food distribution networks and our faculty have become more organized," said Pritts, who noted that he and a number of other faculty will meet Dec. 14 at Cornell with representatives from the food distribution networks to discuss how Cornell can do better by the local food banks. "This makes it easier for us to work with them, and for us not to have each individual faculty member worrying about what to do with the fruits and vegetables after the data are collected. It is more efficient for both parties now."

"I cannot tell you how excited we are to have developed this relationship with Robin Bellinder and the people at the H.C. Thompson Vegetable Research Farm through Cornell University," said Paul A. Hesler, executive director of the Food Bank of the Southern Tier in Elmira.

Cornell's donations last year filled about two and a half tractor-trailer loads, added John Lewkowicz, warehouse operations director of the Food Bank of the Southern Tier. "Volunteers at the food bank repackage these large totes into small packages for food pantries and soup kitchens across the counties we serve. Cornell has been an outstanding partner in helping us feed the hungry."