Find out more about the event: https://www.greenforcare.eu/news/green-care-conference/

1. Social Agriculture
Deirdre O’Connor – University College Dublin
Marjolein Elings - Wageningen Universiteit & Research

2. Social farming: what is it about?
• Different terms used
(social farming, farming
for health, social
agriculture, care
farming)
• Iacovo and O’Connor
(2009):”Social
agriculture refers to all
activities that make use
of the agricultural
context to provide care
and social services”
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3. European perspective of social farming
• Social agriculture is a fast
growing sector in Europe
• The Netherlands: 75 social farms
in 1998; 1300 in 2022
• Different developments and
systems in different countries
• Innovate sector: combines health
care, education and social
services with agricultural
production.
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4. Social Agriculture: some numbers
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Country Number of social farms
represented by main
national/regional
association(s) (2020)
Estimated number of
social farms at
national/regional level
(2020)
The Netherlands 850 1250
Flanders (Belgium) 979 1000
Italy 228 3000
Austria 536 699
Ireland 175 195
Source: Briers., S. et al, (2021) Social Agriculture Market Outlook. Erasmus+ Green4C
project Deliverable 3.4: EU Market outlooks.

5. Some numbers
Of the countries where data is available, we see that:
• The number of participants coming to social farms is
growing (NL: 35.000, Italy: 15.000, Flanders: 2.050)
• Growth in revenues
• In 2020 the total revenues of the sector in the
Netherlands is estimated at 250 million euros, 200k€ on
average per social farm
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The Netherlands Revenues in total (€)
2011 11.3 million
2018 88.6 million

6. The key elements of the social farm
Engagement of farmer
and supervisors
Useful and diverse
activities
Green environment
Informal non-
care context
Social community
Source: Hassink & Elings, 2011

7. Effects of working on a social farm for participants
• Physical well-being
e.g. elderly with dementia have a significant
higher dietary intake than elderly on regular day
care facilities (De Bruin, 2009)
• Mental well-being
e.g. significant positive effect on decrease in
problem behaviour among young people
(Hassink, et al., 2011)
• Social well-being
e.g. participants feel part of the community,
learn social skills and getting new social contacts
(Elings, 2011)
• Spiritual well-being
e.g. participants feel part of bigger pictureand
feel ownership (Elings, 2011; SoFarTEAM, 2022)
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9. Social Agriculture in Green4C:
Multiple Information Sources, Multiple Insights
▪Training Needs
Assessment
▪Social Agriculture
Market Outlook Report
▪e-Learning Course
▪Business Innovation
Challenge
▪Summer School
▪Hackathon
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10. Like to know more?
deirdre.oconnor@ucd.ie
00 353 1 7167706
marjolein.elings@wur.nl
0031 317 480549
www.green4C.eu
www.sofaredu.eu
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