Care Farming in the UK - the current context

Before I dive into my Churchill Fellowship findings I thought it would be useful to share more about current care farming in the UK.

There are currently three organisations working with social care farms and gardens in the UK. Farm Buddies, which works across the South East of England, Social Farming Northern Ireland, which works across Northern Ireland as well as on cross border projects with Social Farming Ireland, and Social Farms and Gardens UK, whose website says they are currently supporting approximately 2000 organisations including city farms, school farms, community gardens as well as the UK's care farms. Their website also has information on training opportunities and their voluntary code of practice.

Social Farming Northern Ireland supports farmers who are delivering or preparing to deliver care farming services and with meeting the requirements in Northern Ireland. This includes a comprehensive training programme, police background checks, help with securing funding, supporting farmers with health and safety management and brokering client placements. Farm Buddies offers their own slightly different support programme in the South East of England. Both of these organisations specifically aim to support family farms.

Amongst some of the people I spoke with, there was a perception that working family farms in England, Scotland and Wales are being overlooked in favour of what was termed 'specialist farms'. They explained that, in their opinion, a specialist farm was a care farm that has been set up to be similar to a day care centre that would take clients five days a week, perhaps run by a charity and that was located on a farm or in a garden.

I hope that my Churchill Fellowship research findings, which are due to be published in August, will inspire UK farmers to consider care farming within their family farms and offer practical solutions to allay concerns as well as explaining the benefits that such initiatives can bring.

In my next blog I will introduce my research themes and questions.