As I mentioned in last week's blog, I began my Fellowship research by reaching out to the farming community. Aware of the changing global and national landscape I wanted to be sure that my research topic was still relevant. I also wanted to understand any current issues or questions related to care farming to ensure that I considered them within the research.
I would like to extend a big thank you to the farmers and farm consultants who took the time to speak with me and share their experiences, thoughts and concerns, as well as describing the advantages of care farming that they had found. Interestingly, they shared similar worries and all included the 'health and safety implications of running a care farm' on their list. I wondered how these worries had been mitigated in other contexts or countries and if my findings could provide some useful practical solutions for UK farmers. I'll be sharing the full list and my findings as part of my final report in the summer.
I would also like to thank Deborah and Rachel from Social Farms and Gardens UK for their lively and helpful discussion and for sharing the most common concerns expressed by the organisations and individuals that they support who are considering setting up a care farm.
Last but not least, thank you to Aoibeann from Rural Support and Suzanne from Queen's University Belfast for sharing more about the social farming programmes and projects that have been running on family farms in Northern Ireland since 2015.
This week I will be attending an introductory course into 'sustainable farming' as part of my Fellowship and I look forward to sharing more in next week's blog.
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