Green Care: A Conceptual Framework - Frisk i naturen

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A brief overview of ‘green care’
approaches
This section briefly explores and defines some specific green care
approaches.
4.1 Care farming
Care farming (also called ‘social farming’ or ‘green care farming’) can be
defined as the use of commercial farms and agricultural landscapes as a
base for promoting mental and physical health, through normal farming
activity (see: Hassink, 2003; Hassink and van Dijk, 2007; Hine et al, 2008 )
and is a growing movement to provide health, social or educational benefits
through farming for a wide range of people. These may include those with
defined medical or social needs (e.g. psychiatric patients, those suffering
from mild to moderate depression, people with learning disabilities, those
with a drug history, disaffected youth or elderly people) as well as those
suffering from the effects of work-related stress or ill-health arising from
obesity. Care farming is therefore a partnership between farmers, health and
social care providers and participants.
All care farms offer some elements of ‘farming’ to varying degrees, be that
crops, horticulture, livestock husbandry, use of machinery or woodland
management. Similarly all care farms offer some element of ‘care’, be that
health or social care or educational benefits. However, there is much variety
in care farms, with differences in the extent of farming or care that they
offer, the context, the client group and the type of farm. Many care farms
offer therapeutic contact with farm livestock but some provide specific
animal assisted therapy. Many farms offer participation in the growing of
crops, salads or vegetables for example but some also offer horticultural
therapy in addition or instead.
The distinction between social and therapeutic horticulture projects and
care farms is that horticultural therapy projects do not usually focus
principally on commercial production activities whereas many care farms
are primarily focused on production on a commercial level.
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