Care farming

Care farming is the use of farming practices for the stated purpose of providing or promoting healing, mental health, social, or educational care services. Convicts may also be required to spend time at care farms. Care farms may provide supervised, structured programs of farming-related activities, including animal husbandry, crop and vegetable production and woodland management.

Effectiveness
Working on a care farm can help adult offenders gain new skills. In nineteenth century Scotland, teaching farming skills to young offenders was tried as a means of reducing recidivism and promoting honest labour. The farm school at Riddrie in the period 1866-68 taught 158 boys. Of these, 64 were subsequently described as "doing well" (ie keeping out of a life of crime). The Riddrie experiment ended due to unrelated costs issues in 1871. More studies on care farming are desirable to determine whether it can be an alternative and adjuvant therapy for people with certain mental illnesses (such as anxiety or depression).

Care farming can be beneficial for the animals on the farm. For example, greater exposure to humans has the potential to reduce some of the stresses caused by typical agricultural practices. Having more people see the animals may increase the detection of parasites or other animal health issues.

History
Benjamin Rush (1746–1813) published 5 books in a series of Medical Inquiries and Observations, the last being concerned with The Diseases of The Mind (1812). In this volume, the practice of horticulture is mentioned twice.



National care farming organizations and networks

 * Care Farming Network (United States)
 * Agriculture & Care Federation (Netherlands)
 * Care Farming Scotland (United Kingdom)
 * Care Farming UK (United Kingdom)
 * Green Care Plattform (Austria)
 * Green Care – Plattform für Akteure und Nutzende im Bereich Umwelt und Gesundheit (Schweiz)
 * Support office for Green Care (Flanders, Belgium)