In the last blog post I reported on the launch of Care Farming UK, the new national umbrella organisation for current and aspiring care farmers. Gaynor Orton and her team are promoting care farming nationally and giving advice to small farmers and larger care organisations that want to use the beneficial effects of connecting with farms and farming for people with any kind of special need.

There are also smaller groups that are cooperating to develop care farming. Some of these are national such as Care Farming Scotland, others more regional such as the active group in Eastern England group,  and the grant-funded Care Farming West Midlands, founded by Jonathan Dover, that serves the three counties of Shropshire, Hereford and Worcestershire.

Closer to home, nine farms in Staffordshire have formed “Staffordshire Care Farming Cooperative” with the aim of sharing ideas, giving mutual support, organising basic training (such as risk assessment, and marketing), and developing core standards. Green Age is an active member of this group.

We were recently told by an eminent agricultural advisor that no farm business plan these days is complete without a detailed “farm diversification” strand, and therefore that “care farming is definitely agriculture” – just as farm shops, dairies, canal side developments, paint balling, and so on are examples of value-added activities for different farms.

For agricultural economists in mainland EU countries, care farming is seen as an example, not just of farm diversification, but of “multifunctionality” or of instances of “positive externalities”. That is, whilst farming is primarily about food production, the very act of farming also brings about other positive and negative side effects (“externalities”). Pollution of watercourses from over-application of fertilisers would be an example of a negative externality; having people with special needs enjoy the countryside would be a positive externality. Multifunctionality is the broader picture whereby farming has multiple functions, rather than just food production.

We (Staffordshire Care Farming Co-operative) are increasingly meeting with social and health care commissioners in Staffordshire and beyond who are interested in how care farming can meet their needs of “personalisation” – giving a wider choice to care seekers about how their needs can be met. “Staffordshire Care Farming Co-operative” is therefore at the forefront of service provision for vulnerable groups, offering a range of social enterprises that people with health and social care needs can choose to help them meet their own needs.

For further details of  the nine farms in Staffordshire Care Farming Co-operative see our website coming soon! In the meantime, please contact us for further details.