A Care Farm for Salford

Care farming is an approach that utilises farms and growing spaces to provide health, social or education care services, potentially providing a supervised, structured programme of nature-based activities. This project has co-produced a white paper that explores the feasibility of the University of Salford co-producing a Care Farm. Such a Care Farm will enable the University to collaborate with national and local partners, students, and external businesses through a distinctive approach to community engagement. A core part will be identifying and engaging with potential industry partners to co-create a business case.

To accomplish this, the project undertook a desk analysis and held stakeholder meetings to capture views on a range of factors including potential business models for a Care Farm, funding opportunities, and likely community partners and beneficiaries. The data from the stakeholder events was be used to inform the development of a white paper that sets out options for steps forward. We plan to disseminate our findings widely and to contribute to the development of care farming as both an area of academic endeavour and a form of positive engagement with communities.  

Principle Investigators: Dr Michelle Howarth

Project Team: Dr Andrea Gibbons, Dr Michael Hardman, Dr Graeme Sherriff

Report title: Care Farming and Green Care in Salford