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No, hanging apples on fences for poor and hungry not nationwide practice in Norway

“In Norway, people harvested their apples and hanged them in their respective fences so that the poor, the hungry and the homeless avail fruits for free instead of letting the apples to waste,” claims a meme shared in Kenya.

Its photo shows bags of apples hanging on a white picket fence.

The meme was flagged as possibly false by Facebook’s fact-checking system. But what are the facts?



Photo of specific incident in 2018


It is not a countrywide practice for people to hang apples on their fences in Norway. 

Rather, this was a single case in 2018 when a Norwegian woman named Inger Garas hung bags of apples on her fence for passersby to take. 

Garas gave away more than 200 kilograms of apples, the surplus from her home orchard. Photos of the apples hanging on Garas’s fence went viral online.

In an interview, she told Norwegian news outlet Drammens Tidende: “There are so many apples this year. Nice, clean and large. I don't get to use everything, and it becomes too much to throw away. Then it is much better to give them away.”

Garas’s single act is not nationwide Norwegian practice.

The meme ends with the popular saying, “sharing is caring”. But on social media, it’s often better to verify before sharing. – Lloyd Hazvineyi




 

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