What is Care Farming?
Care Farming is the therapeutic use of gardening and farming practices – where service users regularly attend the care farm as part of a structured health or social care, rehabilitation or specialist educational programme.
The powerful mix of being in nature, being part of a group and taking part in meaningful nature based activities is what makes care farming so successful.
Care Farms deliver a range of farming-related activities as part of their service provision, including care of livestock, growing crops and vegetables, horticulture and land management.
What’s involved in Care Farming, and how to start a Care Farm
Deborah Evans is Regional Care Farm Manager at Social Farms & Gardens, and has been involved in the Care Farming sector for over 15 years:
Care Farming in Lincolnshire: Hall Farm, Eastoft
Mark Coulman set up a Care Farm on his Lincolnshire farm in 2017. Hall Farm Eastoft operates in partnership with the working farm which supplies potatoes, cereals and high welfare pork into the UK food industry.
Their person-centred education and care activities are centred around their kitchen garden, an orchard, a chicken & bantam flock, a small alpaca herd and 2 bee hives; everyone can get involved in every aspect of managing this.
In this video, Mark explains how it works at Hall Farm; and what he’s learnt from running a Care Farm in Lincolnshire.
Social Farms & Gardens
Social Farms & Gardens is a UK wide charity supporting communities to farm, garden and grow together, improving the health and wellbeing of individuals, communities and the environment through nature-based activities.
Many people assume that community gardens and city or care farms are just nice places to visit where plants are grown and animals kept. But that is far from the whole picture.
Many of them also offer an amazing array of benefits and opportunities, which can include education programmes, play schemes, healthy living initiatives, work and skills training, social enterprises, volunteer opportunities, environmental schemes, horticultural therapy groups, facilities for people with disabilities…and more.
There’s a huge amount of scope for increasing Care Farming in Lincolnshire; the value of doing real, meaningful work on a Care Farm to someone’s health and well being can be life-changing. If you feel this is something that you could offer to adults or children in Lincolnshire, please find out more by contacting:
Deborah Evans, Regional Care Farming Manager: carefarming@farmgarden.org.uk
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