Volume 34, April 2014, Pages 313–325
Highlights
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- Care farming is an emerging phenomenon within the UK agricultural sector.
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- Care on farms is co-produced, transforming lives.
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- Care farming is congruent with farmers' cultural constructions of 'proper' farming.
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- Animal-human relationships are central to the therapeutic value of care farms.
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- Connective agriculture is suggested as a more fitting term for care farming.
Abstract
‘Care
farming’ (variously ‘green care in agriculture’, ‘farming for health’,
‘social farming’ and ‘therapeutic agriculture’) in the UK has grown
rapidly over the last five years from the low base identified by
preliminary scoping studies conducted at that time. In countries where
the activity is most widely practised, the research focus has been
primarily upon the care provided by farms, leaving a paucity of
knowledge about the farms providing care. However, such care is
‘co-produced’, meaning that insights from both agricultural geography
and the geographies of care deserve to be unified. In the British
context, an agricultural perspective has seldom been applied; where done
so, it has dismissed care farming as merely ‘hobby farming’ or
conceptualised it as a minor economic activity helping to diversify the
farm business and illustrating ‘multifunctionality’. Surprisingly little
attention has been paid to either its relationship with productive
‘core’ farming activities or the consequences for farmers themselves.
Using questionnaires and interviews, the express purpose of this paper
is to identify and explicate the characteristics of care farms and
farmers. Analysis reveals that it is not easy to pigeon-hole care
farmers according to their age, motives, size of farm or land tenure.
The paper moves on to discuss the transformative nature of care farming
on the way in which farmers live their lives. In particular, symbiotic
human–animal relations emerge regardless of whether livestock are kept
as pets or commercial enterprises. Also revealed is the altruistic
satisfaction of farmers as they provide ethical care and see positive
changes in their service users. The paper concludes by suggesting how
the multiple connections that are found to result from the interaction
of agricultural practises and care provision might be more accurately
conceptualised and articulated as ‘connective agriculture’.
Keywords
- Care farming;
- Connective agriculture;
- Co-production;
- Human–animal relations;
- Transition
- Corresponding author. Tel.:
+44 (0)1905 855187.
Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
