Farmers who care
Could you combine care of the land with care of people? Care or social farming is being pushed at EU level as an exciting – and profitable – rural enterprise, but what exactly does it involve?
Social farming has great potential in Ireland, I believe,” says Aideen McGloin of UCD. “Many farmers have a natural inclination towards this sort of work because they look after – nurture – animals and the land. They enjoy farming and can see the benefits of it for themselves, so they can also see the benefits for others.
“Ireland has the resources too: farms that have sheep, beef and dairying enterprises could lend themselves to social farming.”
Aideen is part of the UCD team compiling a list of individuals and groups in Ireland involved in social farming and analysing its potential as a rural development enterprise. This work comes under the umbrella of the SOFAR (social farming) project, which is EU funded and involves seven countries in total.
What is care farming?
Social farming – otherwise known as “care farming” or “green care” – describes farming practices aimed at promoting well-being for people with mental-health difficulties, people with disabilities (intellectual, physical or sensory), drug/alcohol rehabilitation services, prisoner rehabilitation services, services for older people and other disadvantaged groups.
Social farming is already highly developed in the Netherlands and in Norway. Aideen says: “700 Dutch private commercial farmers (mostly dairy) are now linked in with social services. That’s a very significant number. Norway already has training schools set up for farmers interested in getting involved in social farming, so they are much further on than we are.”
This project is looking at the potential of social farming as a rural development opportunity. “At UCD we’ve been getting an overview of how much social farming is already going on here with a view to developing it for the future and giving the stakeholders a say in developing policy round it.”
Traditionally, agriculture and horticulture was used as an activity within institutional care settings. At one time that work also helped provide food to run these institutions. “Now there is a new focus on person-centred care and a need to move away from the artificial living conditions of many institutions. The focus is now on re-integration of people with all kinds of disabilities back into the wider community,” explains Aideen.
120 Centres in
In the UCD research, 120 centres in Ireland were identified offering varying levels of service. Only two private farms are included. “These centres included Camphill communities for people with intellectual disabilities and Cuan Mhuire centres, run by Sr Consilio, that offer rehabilitation for those with alcohol or drug addiction.”
So how have farmers become involved in other countries? “In the Netherlands, it seems to have been farmers linking up spontaneously with health services to offer this kind of service as part of people’s recovery programmes. In Ireland, farmers haven’t linked up with the HSE so much. Perhaps it’s because we have such a range of religious organisations involved in this work.
“We’ve found that initial involvement often came because of a family member with a disability or mental health problem, or a spouse who worked in health services; you see a lot of connection that way.”
Aideen admits that you would have to like the work. “There is definitely a philanthropic element to it,” she says.
Thinking about getting involved?
Aideen McGloin advises getting in touch with her first to get background information. After that, it’s a case of trying to find a receptive ear within the HSE.
“County by county, it seems to come down to finding someone who is interested. There is no single person in charge of social farming in the HSE, even though the HSE funds a huge number of projects. Across Europe, it’s been a case of dynamic, driven people approaching social services and getting a door open.”
Meetings of interested people are being held around the country and farmer delegates have already met in Brussels to plan a way forward. Pilot projects are currently being planned and run here to provide templates for future social farmers.
“The one thing you want to guard against, though, is turning the farm into an institutional-type day-care service. The normal environment of a farm is what attracts service users: a proper working environment, not a medical model institution.
“That said, you have to find the balance: health and safety issues have to be taken into account but you also want it to be a farm,” stresses Aideen.
The bottom line
The National Care Farming Initiative UK (NCFI), based at Harper Adams University College, Shropshire, has revealed that a single care-farm operation could generate an average revenue of £52,517 per farm per annum.
Irish contacts
Aideen McGloin, MSc Researcher SOFAR Project at University College Dublin: aideen.mcgloin@ucd.ie or telephone 01-716-7561.
To contact Margaret Fingleton email mgtfingleton@yahoo.ie.
Brothers of charity
Liam Tobin and Aidan Murphy are programme co-ordinator and farm manager, respectively, at Belmont Park in Waterford – a 162-acre commercial dairy farm run by the Brothers of Charity Services. This social farm’s clientele are all people with intellectual disabilities, from Waterford and south Kilkenny.
Aidan Murphy says: “Our service users are involved in all the normal daily activities on the farm. At the moment, that means helping with the calving, feeding and bedding the calves, milking, and so on. Some of our clients are able to drive, so they can do a bit of topping or bring meals to cattle in the field.”
Aidan finds it very fulfilling to see people acquiring new skills. “When they learn how to do an activity, even over a long period of time, you can see from the look on their face what they’ve got out of it. That’s the kind of satisfaction that would attract me to working in this area.”
Activities are geared to the person’s ability, Aidan Murphy says. “The activities are there primarily to support the person using the services; the agricultural activity is secondary.
“If we’re out in the field making hay or whatever and the participant is having a bad day – and we all have good days and bad days – but if he or she does not engage with the activity for whatever reason, you may have to drop tools and come back to the farmyard.”
Liam Tobin agrees: “We train our staff to understand the issues that may come up for our participants and what may drive their anxiety. If you understand that, you can do a lot of proactive work that will alleviate this anxiety and help them to remain engaged in the agricultural activity.”
Past master
Margaret Fingleton, from Spink in Co Laois, ran Finwey social farm for six years. While she has now gone back to work part-time with disability services, her experience was good and she sees social farming as important for the future.
“We set up Finwey Farm in order for me to be able to work from home, but as time went on we had less and less time with family. As with any business that’s growing, I found I was getting away from what I like doing, working with people with disabilities, to answering the phone and going to meetings and attending case conferences.”
Margaret believes that there is a huge need for this kind of service. “I would have loved a larger organisation to take it on – for example, the HSE – because there is a lot of proven scientific fact backing that whole area of therapeutic farming. The Finwey farm is still used by a group called Extern as a base for some outdoor activities, but Margaret is not involved.
“Financially, it was rewarding to the point where it overtook the dairying. We charged what it cost to run, rather than just to get people in, but we had to provide good-quality food, a one-to-five staff-to-client ratio; we all had to be able to turn our hand to anything, whether it was cooking dinner or looking after the animals, milking, going on a two-mile hike.”
An organic experience
Co Sligo organic farmer Guy Marsden was one of the SOFAR Irish delegates to Brussels. A lecturer at Sligo IT, he has a registered organic farm and is just about to go into REPS 4. He has been involved in social farming on a small scale, but is planning further involvement.
“We were contacted by a local centre for people with intellectual disabilities to run a horticultural programme for their clients. We were setting up a poly tunnel at the time, so they helped out with establishing the seed-beds and planting and weeding.”
You have to have the right mentality for the work, though, he believes. “It’s not the sort of thing to be done, because there might be a few bucks in it. I know from meeting Dutch delegates that this is happening.
“The government saw the value of it in terms of improving quality of life, which meant people were using less anti-depressants and chemical medication. It has now become a commercialised activity. I don’t believe that’s the right way. You have to have a philosophical approach,” Guy explains.