J. Hassink

THE DEVELOPMENT OF GREEN CARE IN WESTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

This article represents a review of green care across Western European countries. The following questions are addressed: What is green care, and what are its basic goals? What are the most commonly known types of green care interventions, and how are they connected to each other? There are different sectors of green care intervention that vary from each other regarding their structure, specific goals, and purpose. These traits will be investigated in this review. And lastly, how these interventions are designed and their approach to promote and provide health will be examined.

Care farms in the Netherlands: attractive empowerment-oriented and strengths-based practices in the community.

Empowerment-oriented and strengths-based practices focusing on community integration have gained recognition for various client groups in recent decades. This paper discusses whether care farms in the Netherlands are relevant examples of such practices. We identify characteristics associated with care farms that are relevant for three different client groups: clients with severe mental health problems, clients from youth care backgrounds, and frail elderly clients. We interviewed 41 clients, 33 care farmers, and 27 health professionals. The study shows that care farms are experienced as unique services because of a combination of different types of characteristic qualities: the personal and involved attitude of the farmer, a safe community, useful and diverse activities, and a green environment. This leads to an informal context that is close to normal life. We found no essential differences in the assessment of characteristics between different client groups and between clients, farmers, and health professionals. Care farms can be considered as an innovative example of community-based services that can improve the quality of life of clients.

Current status and potential of care farms in the Netherlands

Surveys among care farmers and data from the National Agricultural Census were analysed to describe the care-farming sector in the Netherlands. The number of care farms increased from 75 in 1998 to 591 in 2005. Care farming is the fastest growing sector of multifunctional agriculture. In 2005, nearly 10,000 clients made use of care farms, of which 8000 used non-institutional care farms. The main client groups were mentally challenged clients, psychiatric clients, autistic persons, elderly people and youths. The average annual revenue of care activities on a non-institutional care farm was about € 73,000, which amounts to annual revenues of € 37.1 million for the total Dutch non-institutional care-farming sector. The annual revenue for care activities was considerably higher than for other extended activities. Care farming resulted in 473 additional jobs in 2005. The prospects of care farming are positive and the growth in number of care farms is expected to continue.

FARMING FOR HEALTH IN THE NETHERLANDS

The development of green care farms is described in this chapter, followed by other examples of farming for health in the urban areas. Some interesting projects and the main challenges are discussed

New Practices of Farm-Based Community-Oriented Social Care Services in The Netherlands

ABSTRACT. Social care services provided by farmers provide a community-based collaboration that can empower people and improve their quality of life. The objective of this study was to increase understanding of the collaboration between care organizations and farmers. The study involves 4 cases, and all stakeholders involved in the collaboration were interviewed using boundary spanning and the quest of innovative practices for legitimacy as sensitizing concepts. In this study, 2 types of boundary spanners were identified: initiators of collaboration and top-level managers. Successful collaboration expressed by structural implementation of farm-based services in the care organization and the positive reactions of clients, care organizations, and farmers is initiated by committed and strategically operating boundary spanners with different backgrounds. Support from top-level management of the care organizations involved is crucial for overall success. Future research needs to focus on collaboration with other types of newcomers in the care sector, the impact of budget cuts in the social and care domains, and the increasing pressure on participation of service users in society in collaboration processes.

Relationships between green urban citizens’ initiatives and local governments

Abstract It is often challenging to establish a good relationship between the green initiatives of urban citizens and local governments. Our aim is to gain a better understanding of how citizens and local authorities interact and how they can establish good relationships, relationships that contribute to the realization of the aims and interests of citizen initiatives and local governments. We analysed these relationships for five different initiatives, including the perspectives of initiators and civil servants. We hypothesized that an important challenge is to connect the initiative’s informal world and the formal world of local governments. Relationships can be problematic due to a lack of recognition and appreciation for the initiators on the part of the municipality, diverging ambitions or ideologies between the initiative and municipality or unreliable behaviour of initiatives in the view of civil servants. The results showed that a willingness to work together and developing trust are key conditions in developing good partnerships. Our study provide insight into how mutual trust can be developed. Developing a trustful relationship requires social competences. Trust building involves several social practices: establishing an emotional connection, ability and integrity, and aligning to each other’s expectations. Formal aspects of local governments, like rules and procedures, are not a major problem in the development of initiatives when a trustful relationship has been established. The civil servants and aldermen (City Council Members) involved are then able to overcome formal obstacles, such as mismatch with regulations.

Exploring the Role of Farm Animals in Providing Care at Care Farms

Simple Summary This paper provides insight into the role of farm animals in farm-based programs and their importance to different types of participants. Farm animals provide real work, close relationships, challenging tasks and opportunities for reflection. They also contribute to a welcoming atmosphere for various types of participants. Abstract We explore the role of farm animals in providing care to different types of participants at care farms (e.g., youngsters with behavioural problems, people with severe mental problems and people with dementia). Care farms provide alternative and promising settings where people can interact with animals compared to a therapeutic healthcare setting. We performed a literature review, conducted focus group meetings and carried out secondary data-analysis of qualitative studies involving care farmers and different types of participants. We found that farm animals are important to many participants and have a large number of potential benefits. They can (i) provide meaningful day occupation; (ii) generate valued relationships; (iii) help people master tasks; (iv) provide opportunities for reciprocity; (v) can distract people from them problems; (vi) provide relaxation; (vii) facilitate customized care; (viii) facilitate relationships with other people; (ix) stimulate healthy behavior; (x) contribute to a welcoming environment; (xi) make it possible to experience basic elements of life; and (xii) provide opportunities for reflection and feedback. This shows the multi-facetted importance of interacting with animals on care farms. In this study the types of activities with animals and their value to different types of participants varied. Farm animals are an important element of the care farm environment that can address the care needs of different types of participants.

Participation rate of farmers in different multifunctional activities in the Netherlands

In this article, we present the findings from a study into the relationships between socio demographic, economic, and geographical characteristics of farm holdings and their participation rate in multifunctional activities. Recreation, nature management, care, and education services are most widespread among dairy farms. Farm holders of arable and dairy farms with extended activities are younger and the economic size of their enterprises is larger than that of conventional enterprises. For horticultural and intensive husbandry farmers, there were no age differences and, unlike the land-based types of holdings, the economic size of farms with extended activities was smaller than that of conventional farms. While care and education are more widespread in urbanized areas, the opposite was found for nature management. Proximity to sea has a positive impact on the participation rate in recreation, on-farm selling, and nature management. In order to understand the decisions of farmers, it is crucial to take the type of multifunctional activity, type of agricultural holding, and location into consideration.

Identity formation and strategy development in overlapping institutional fields

Purpose: Care farming is an underexplored example of agricultural diversification. In their process of diversification, care farmers are newcomers to the healthcare sector, facing high entry barriers and lacking the skills required to build a solid and legitimate presence in this new domain. Changes in the care regime have provided opportunities for new players, like regional organizations of care farmers, to gain access to care budgets. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze how strategies designed to establish regional organizations of care farms with similar access to institutional resources unfold and are translated into entrepreneurial behavior, organizational identity and legitimacy, and help provide access to care budgets. Design/methodology/approach: Using entrepreneurship, identity formation and legitimacy building as guiding concepts, the authors interviewed stakeholders and analyzed activities and documents to gain a broad perspective with regard to the organizations, skills and activities. Findings: The authors identified two types of regional care farm organizations: a cooperative and a corporate type. While the corporate type clearly exhibited entrepreneurial behavior, leading to a trustful and appealing organizational identity, substantial fund-raising and an early manifestation of institutional and innovative legitimacy in the care sector, the cooperative type initially lacked entrepreneurial agency, which in turn led to a lack of legitimacy and a slow development toward a more professional market-oriented organization. Manifesting entrepreneurial behavior and strategically aligning the healthcare and agricultural sectors, and building up both institutional and innovative legitimacy in the care sector proved to be crucial to the successful development of regional organizations of care farms. This study contributes to existing literature by exploring relationships between entrepreneurial and institutional strategies, legitimacy, organizational identity and logics. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature by exploring how in times with changes in institutional logics, strategies to establish new organizations unfold. The authors have shown how differences in strategy to establish new organizations with similar access to institutional resources unfold and are translated into diverging organizational identities and degrees of legitimacy. Entrepreneurial behavior is the key to create a trustful and appealing identity and innovative and institutional legitimacy which is important for providing access to an institutionalized sector.