Still lovin' your idea!

I think this sounds a great idea in outline - the devil, as always, is in the detail. I want eventually to start something similar in the UK. My idea is to give donated organic allotment excess produce to old age pensioners and disabled people for a very low price. Perhaps producers would get a small amount of money as an incentive and the scheme would be run largely by volunteers. One problem with collecting lots of waste fruit from gardens is that it is actually a very valuable resource for wildlife. I've had dozens of blackbirds enjoying "wasted" windfall apples this year.

Great Idea and definitely needed.

Great idea!

My neighbor has two peach trees whose branches extend into my yard. I picked all the peaches on my side of the fence, using them fresh and freezing some. Did you know you can freeze peaches simply by washing them and then putting them in your freezer whole? When you want to use one, just slightly thaw it and the skin easily comes off. Yummy!! Unfortunately, he did not use the peaches on his side of the fence. Too bad someone else couldn't have enjoyed them!

Wonderful idea!

You should win!

Of course it is a great idea. I do not know how easy it would be for the supermarkets to accept this produce since they probably need to comply with some goverment legislation regarding the origing and specifics of the food they sell. Good luck with your project !!

Hey Kemper, I think that his is such a great idea. Like I told you, I have 18 fruit trees and every year, we give away as much as anyone will take, and still, we throw away tons of perfectly goo fruit. I hope that this all works out. Good Luck!! I support you 100%.

This is an excellent idea!

Great idea! :)

This is great! There's a house about a block over from me where apples and pears drop into the front yard every year and nobody ever picks them up. They just rot! I'd love to have the support of an organization to ask the homeowner for permission to take that fruit to the food bank. I've been too shy to go ring the doorbell on my own.

This is great! There's a house about a block over from me where apples and pears drop into the front yard every year and nobody ever picks them up. They just rot! I'd love to have the support of an organization to ask the homeowner for permission to take that fruit to the food bank. I've been too shy to go ring the doorbell on my own.

We also have a waste problem with pear orchards in our county. Micro harvesting would be great, but the orchard owners might fear damage to their trees.

This is a wonderful idea! This would help all people.

Great idea! Just the other day we passed an orchard and all the apples were still on the trees. My husband said that an elderly couple lived there and they probably couldn't harvest the apples. I don't know why they didn't give them away. So many people go hungry, we shouldn't waste food!

this is a great idea

It is a great idea and shcool kids can make a field trip or community project to help.

11-30 voted for your idea

Great idea.... I see first hand the waisted produce. in our area (Orchardists) left to rot each fall Why? Becasue market price is down, Migrent farm workers are harder to find....E.WA.

Great - we need to get the food to the hungry without trucking it all around the world!

Excellent. Proper food distribution is really a big area for improvement.

Excellent idea!

This is a good idea, and the farms could definitely get a tax write-off for any donated food. Check into the Red Cross - they give fruit to people who have just given blood and they love donations.

What a novel idea!

This is a far cry from a new idea. 100 years ago many people had backyard gardens and distributed the excess to everyone from family to friends to hobos passing through town. It is also the concept behind World War II victory gardens and the more recent trend in urban market gardening and farming. Grow the crops close to the population that consumes them and eliminate the 1000 mile diet. If this idea wins $10k then I'm the poor fool for not dusting off good old ideas and entering them.

creative idea

Great idea!

I think this sounds like an excellent idea to help the needy and also to prevent wasted food.

Amazing idea!!!!!

great idea

**** the word gets out this idea will take on momentum. I have started using farmers markets as have my adult sons. It's a great time to not only help the environment but to meet people, be outdoors etc.

This is a great idea = in this area, we have farmer's markets where one can sell their extra fruit and produce, even smaller quantities. If gathering and processing the fruit for consumer use isn't viable or legal, please add the idea of donating all extra to your local shelter or food pantry. Many welcome fresh food and are wiling to pick it up! Good luck with your ideas!

This is a great idea. Love it

It Sounds like a good idea but I have no knowledge of the viewpoint of the fruit growers.

Excellent idea, We have fruit trees and it just makes me sick looking at the fruit that we end up tossing each year. This would be a great project. Good luck and all the best to you.

GREAT

This idea is very relevant to the local, small-town growers in Louisiana, and particularly to the local berry growers. Crops are rarely fully- harvested. I wish you the best of luck with this timely, "green" proposal!

I hope you win! beautiful idea!

great idea!

I think it is a great idea but we have fruit like this. The drawback from the homeowners perspective is liablity. If someone is on a ladder picking apples and falls off, will they sue me? Where there is fruit, there are often beehives, if someone gets stung, will I be sued? I live in a building that used to be a tavern, and have not been able to find homeowners insurance.

this is a fantastic idea... it should win!

Great idea Kemper! We have just 1 small peach tree in our backyard and I still had a hard time finding enough people to give them to because it was more peaches than my family could eat alone. I would love to know that the other fruit is being used whether it's sold locally or given to the needy!

This is an awesome idea, you just have to make sure that the government does that get a hold of this great idea or they will try to turn it into something completely different from what you want and make your Urban Harvesting all about money. I fully support this idea and will be with you all the way, so good luck^^

It could be just the way it's presented, but the idea sounds sort of top down. I've sort of thought of this idea as something more community building and voluntary pushed by gardeners and home owners themselves. A lot of people who plant produce end up with too much, and then they have to just haphazardly give the fruit and veg to people they know, and sometimes those people pass it on once again to people they know. It would be a good idea to provide a platform to allow people to put out a notice that they have too much or would like to have harvesting done, sort of like freecycling or full circle groups (there are already some gardening exchange groups, but they're not well-known yet. Alternatively, companies, cities, etc, who pick up compost or have drop-offs could deal with produce at …morethe same time. With a more community "group" base you avoid some of the problems of supplying labor though, and people could connect based on shared neighbourhoods. You could even rent out or barter garden plots in exchange for produce or for free this way, sort of how people lend out their parking spaces in some places. There are a lot of possibilities. I definitely agree we need to up our local food production for a lot of different reasons. There's the energy perspective, the environmental perspective, but there's also the problems of conventional ag. Smaller food operations mean we can have more diverse plant species and breeds (and maybe even livestock in some places), which protects us against new diseases and pest problems. If you know where your food comes from, chances are it's going to be safer, because it's not some nameless corporation or unknown farmer states or countries away. In my city we have a non-profit that gets produce from local farmers and redistributes "baskets" for a fee based on the size and whether it's pesticide free, etc. They also are involved in community gardening, food preservation (canning, etc) classes and will provide recipes with their baskets. Every place or region should probably have a local food cookbook. People don't even know how to grow food anymore, what's in season in their areas and what to do with it or how to store it in many cases. This might also be the reason a lot of produce goes to waste, that and hectic modern lifestyles.

It is a great idea and I'm behind it 100%, but on the other hand government regulations tend to try to stop this great idea. "They" always seem to want to regulate everything so much - see for example NAIS and regulations about buying fresh raw milk or local meat. I hope your idea succeeds!

I think this is a fantastic idea. Glad someone is stepping up for the challenge. Best of luck to you!

this is amazing. thank you for finding me on stumble upon. [i'm keminet]. I used to live in Socorro and we had a plum tree which we never ate from; the fruit just fell and was picked off by birds. this is such a simple and fantastic idea.

less wasted food and fuller bellies! i'm excited to see where this goes and hope the obstacles are few. there would have to be some sort of "regulation" i would imagine. so many hoops to get through sometimes.

Some of the uglist fruit is the best fruit, nothing taste better then tree ripened peaches! And to heck with those gased tomatoes you find at the grocery store, they may be pretty but they have no taste. Great idea lets see how far you can take it.

The time available for harvesting is a very short period of time. The routes would need to be established prior to the days of harvesting so that we're not driving around aimlessly wasting resources. If you contrast this with the current situation where our food is traveling an average of 1,000+ miles just to get to our grocery stores, the energy consumed locally would be no where near this extent. The fact that we would be harvesting locally also means food would be fresher. The current food system requires that fruit be picked before it's ripe so it can survive the shipping.

Great idea! check out my idea too: social networking site for neighbors and neighborhoods: http://ideablob.com/ideas/810-A-social-networking-website-for but, what about costs? you have to travel home to home, wasting energy in the form of gas and time.. sounds a little inefficient...

I am a chef with a fruit tree and have thought of this many times. Great idea

i think its a great idea! its good to see that someone is actually doing something instead of just complaining. keep up the good work and let us know if we can do anything to help. k.jones

Great idea! I think it will appeal more to homeowners if they have the option to eat those fruits. I will be the first to sign up.

awesome idea!

Good luck on this, I think it's a great idea.

Great Idea, I might suggest figuring out where the next stage of waste will go, seems like you might end up with a little unusable, perhaps wildlife rehab facilities.... Good luck man

great idea. any unusable fruits can be turned into brandy!

Sounds like a great idea! Good luck wit it.......who inspired your idea, perhaps a relative? haha

Super, super.! Wonder if some of the recipients would be able to contribue some labor. What a great way to show the needy that someone has to do the work and what a great education for children to learn what goes into healthful food. Just a thought. A lot of people might be more receptive if they thought they were helping and maybe it would help create more healthful diets.

I love this idea! I live in a rural area and see lots of fruit rotting on the ground or on the trees because the owners are elderly or disabled and can't harvest it themselves. Having someone come in and do the work helps everyone involved.

I think it's a fantastic idea. I live in a rural area and watch food go to waste almost continuously. But I do think that \, as Hope said, you'll have difficulties getting the local chains to buy the food because most of the big chains have their suppliers. And the non-profit 'feed the hungry' programs may have liability rules they have to negotiate. But other than these two situations, I think it would be fantastic. The savings on fuel would be quite substantial.

Fantastic idea Kemper!! You are very thoughtful and helpful to those around you. I wish you good luck and I really do hope you win!

As an avid gardener and someone who lives in a "semi" rural community--I see a lot of positive aspects to this idea. I hate seeing rotting fruit in neighbors yards. Perhaps adding the ability to can, freeze, or juice this harvest might be worth exploring?

Sounds like some research into government regulations regarding food distrubution should be known. It is a great idea to try to consume our often abundant resources that get wasted. Although, fruit not picked is consumed by the wildlife in our area. Keep thinking wholesome, healthy and green. Good luck on your ideas.

Great idea? How is it different from localharvest.org?

I get 10% of the prize deal or no deal?

Some of my family has already tapped the farmer markets in Albuquerque. This idea was actually stemmed from observing them collect fruit and take it to these markets. I'm hoping to push further off that concept and provide the nicer looking fruit to stores and maybe look to establish a system of juicing and bottling for the rest. Whole Foods/Wild Oats and many of the smaller local grocery stores are now working to promote local products. I do see some room though for some research into a system that can keep all of this food safe for the end consumer. It would probably still be safer than the large farms that are having problems with E coli and other contaminants.

Of course it is a great idea. I do not know how easy it would be for the supermarkets to accept this produce since they probably need to comply with some goverment legislation regarding the origing and specifics of the food they sell. It may be easier to contact the fruit markets that run seasonally on Saturdays in some public parks through Albuquerque and that handle only locally grown fruits and vegetables. Good luck with your project !!

Is this activity part of a larger regional or national movement? I'd like to know more. Good on you for taking up this challenge!

WE have lots of unharvested fruit in our area, some of which is left by commercial growers. A lot of it is donated to food banks and rots because the underprivileged often don't want the fruit. I hope you are not in favor of corn use for an alternative fuel. It is a bad idea.

it would help the needy very much. it might also be a struggle to imporvise because this would require a regular commitment from many other people and people are creatures of habit, it takes awhile to get them to change habits.it can be done and that's what makes this idea practical.

Good luck...I think this is a great idea. :)

Yes, this is very real and is a viable solution to some of the problems with our food system today. I'll be working to post further information about this project at this web site: madenatural.com

If this is infact true, then this is amazing