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.[1][2] Convicts may also be required to spend time at care farms.[3] Care farms may provide supervised, structured programs of farming-related activities, including animal husbandry, crop and vegetable production and woodland management.[4] Some farms attempt to alleviate the effects of the medically-unrecognized condition nature deficit disorder.[5]
Medical Uses
Effectiveness
Working on a care farm can help adult offenders gain new skills.[6]
Care farming can be beneficial for the animals on the farm.[7]
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.[8]
It has been remarked, that the maniacs of the male sex in all hospitals, who assist in cutting wood, making fires, and digging in a garden, and the females who are employed in washing, ironing, and scrubbing floors, often recover, while persons, whose rank exempts them from performing such services, languish away their lives within the walls of the hospital.[9]
References
- http://www.carefarminguk.org
- CareFarmingScotland.org.uk
- Murray, J; Coker, JF; Elsey, H. "Care farming: Rehabilitation or punishment? A qualitative exploration of the use of care farming within community orders". Health Place. doi:10.1016/j.healthplace.2019.102156.
- National Care Farming Initiative (UK)
- SanctuaryOne.org
- Murray, J; Coker, JF; Elsey, H. "Care farming: Rehabilitation or punishment? A qualitative exploration of the use of care farming within community orders". Health Place. doi:10.1016/j.healthplace.2019.102156.
- Gorman, R (2019). "What's in it for the animals? Symbiotically considering 'therapeutic' human-animal relations within spaces and practices of care farming". Med Humanit. doi:10.1136/medhum-2018-011627.
- "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-26. Retrieved 2011-08-22.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- Rush, B. (1812) Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind, The History of Medicine Series, No 15, New York: Hafner Publishing Company, 1962