Social farming as a tool for innovation in agriculture

Key points

The EESC:

• recommends framing social farming as an innovation within the agricultural sector that primarily delivers positive solutions to social and health problems at local level;
• calls on the European Commission and the Member States to see social farming as an interdisciplinary and cross-cutting agenda that cannot be financed solely through isolated short-term projects, and calls for the obstacles to receiving financial support for social farming activities to be removed and for cutting administration and red tape for socio-agricultural activities of proven origin and quality;
• calls for awareness on social farming as an integral part of multifunctional agriculture to be raised, and recommends that a transferable regulatory framework be developed within the EU, together with stakeholders, to guarantee the origin and quality of social farming goods and services that have a proven ethical origin and positive environmental and social footprint, which will be continuously verified. The EESC stresses the need for it to be promoted at all levels – EU, national and local;
• advocates full compliance with ethical and environmental standards in conjunction with fair wages, collective bargaining, safe working conditions, respect for human dignity and predictable employment, which are the norm on social farms and contribute to the well-being, motivation and job sustainability;
• stresses that social farming can be an important part of support infrastructure in rural areas, particularly where the availability of services is limited. The links between health, social work and agriculture bring innovation in the form of non-pharmacological approaches in medicine;
• calls for improving work on data and measuring the impact of social farming, but in a way that is practical, proportionate and applicable to different types of enterprises and services depending on the region and suggest that it would be useful to monitor the impact on the environment, social policies, employment and public health;
• recommends setting up a system of training in social farming, calls for the development of systemic guidance and vocational training in social farming at all levels of education and supports the creation of accredited courses and the provision of information to kindergartens, primary and secondary schools;
• highlights the importance of the involvement of local action groups in applying the LEADER/CLLD method to set up a support and intermediary structure. The EESC agrees that LEADER should continue to be a key actor in local community development, in line with Article 18 of the 2028-2034 CAP proposal , and that it should highlight the need for social farming in the strategies of local action groups;
• calls for an EU concept for housing support to be used to build housing capacity in rural areas to support social farming, and notes that there is a long-standing crisis in housing, making it unaffordable for many social groups.