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Care Farming

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) on securing this debate. I have opened an Adjournment debate speech with that phrase many times over my past 11 years as a Minister, but I genuinely mean it on this occasion. My hon. Friend may not know that I started my professional career as a child care worker, working with young people in an assessment centre. Although all the young people I worked with have now grown up, I can imagine that many of them would have benefited from the kinds of work that care farms do. He is right to say that our mutual friend Lord Rooker visited the care farm; it is called Highfields Happy Hens. It is obviously an inspirational place, and I know that Lord Rooker found it an enjoyable place to visit as well. There are many benefits to care farming, and the benefits to the individuals referred to them are apparent. They include improvements in general health, welfare, self-esteem and behaviour, as well as the benefits of structured routine, helping people with a huge variety of problems and issues to function effectively in their daily lives and to contribute to society. I can believe it when some of the individuals who have benefited from care farming have said that the experience has literally changed their lives. I know that these benefits have also been proved by academic research. This is a classic example of something that has been said informally for many years—in this case about the benefits of country living and activities—being proved to be true. In this instance, it has been proved in a unique, positive and direct way. The therapeutic effects of caring for animals and direct contact with growing activities have been recognised for a long time, although care farming is a novel and exciting method of putting these theories into practice. One of DEFRA's key goals is to support farmers in building a profitable, innovative and competitive industry that meets consumers' needs. Our social goals include working to support farming's wider contribution to the long-term sustainability of rural economies and communities and to public health. Care farming takes the notion of meeting consumer needs to a new level. Care farming contributes to both of these important goals I have outlined. It has the capacity to contribute to the health of the farming industry as well as to the health of the individual. Part of developing a thriving, competitive farming sector is being imaginative in the use of resources that the farm and the landscape have to offer. I am talking in particular about the benefits of diversification. Diversification can increase farmers' incomes, and expand the farm business base to be more viable and sustainable, and 50 per cent. of farms in England already have diversified activity. Diversification is not the answer for everyone, and a farm business's capacity for diversification depends on a range of issues, not least the location of the farm and the skills of the farmer. Likewise, care farming is not going to be an option for every farm, but it is the kind of creative solution to add to the repertoire of alternatives that farmers can consider to maximise their business opportunities and support the overall viability of the farming business. Farm diversification can also benefit the wider rural economy, contributing to other businesses and providing local jobs. The study by Essex university to which my hon. Friend referred found that care farms in the UK employed a total of 657 full-time and part-time staff, as well as providing many additional volunteering opportunities. Many of those jobs are likely to be local, supporting the rural economy, and volunteering opportunities offer people the chance to increase their skills and participate more fully in the community. There are also many benefits to farms and the rural community beyond the economic ones. A key problem for farmers is isolation. Farmers are often sole traders, only occasionally hiring in labour, and with families working off-farm they can find themselves working alone, in difficult conditions, for extended periods, without the support of colleagues and family that people in other jobs and businesses take for granted. Because of that, farmers often find themselves suffering from loneliness and depression, and isolated from their local communities. Having other people working alongside them on the farm, be they other members of support staff or the care farming beneficiaries, can help enormously to alleviate such problems. Farmers involved in care farming schemes must feel an added sense of personal satisfaction and achievement when beneficiaries blossom in their care and eventually develop the skills and confidence to move on and to build a new life for themselves, encouraged by their on-farm experiences. It is clearly not only the intended beneficiaries of care farming who can reap the rewards of participation in this initiative. Care farming even helps to contribute to the wider awareness of the role of farming and its contribution to the countryside. A key issue identified by the Curry report in 2002 was that consumers as a whole had become ““disconnected”” from their food and where it came from, and had little appreciation of the role of farming. Since then, the Department and the industry have been encouraging farmers to try to reconnect themselves with the market and their consumers. That can take many forms, such as direct selling through farm shops and farmers' markets. In addition, DEFRA, through its environmental stewardship schemes, along with other organisations such as Linking Environment and Farming—LEAF—has been encouraging farmers to open up their farms to the public, to encourage a greater understanding of farming. Another example of that, other than care farms, is open farm Sunday, which has been running for three years. Last year, more than 400 farmers opened their doors to more than 150,000 members of the public, educating them about farming and food. My hon. Friend might think that I have wandered a little from the issue of care farming, but there was a point to my previous comment, because like those initiatives, care farming educates its participants about the purpose and value of farming, by involving them directly in the work activities of farms so that they can appreciate the importance of the role, and, in addition, gain pride and self-esteem from their participation. It also restores pride in the farmers providing the service. It increases, yet again, the value we are obtaining from our farms and the land, and it opens up the eyes of the community to the kind of valuable contribution that farming, as an industry, can make to wider society. It is good to see the concept of care farming spreading in England, although we have a long way to go in its implementation to catch up with some of our European neighbours. Debates such as this will usefully serve to raise awareness of the existence of care farming and the benefits it brings. However, it will be down to individual deliverers of health and social care, education and ex-offender rehabilitation, whether they wish to spend their funding in this way and incorporate such an initiative in their portfolios of health and welfare support activities. It is also very much an individual business and personal decision for farmers whether this kind of activity can contribute to the viability of their farm, and whether they have the skills and commitment to contribute to making their farms a key part of rehabilitation and support for disadvantaged people. However, I am sure that with increased awareness of both the activities in practice and the research into the impacts of care farming that have been described this evening, this initiative will move from being a fairly niche activity to take its place beside other recognised caring activities as a valuable resource for social and health care practitioners to draw upon.