Impact of Support Centres for Social Farming on Benefits from Livestock in Northern Europe

Social farming uses farm activities as a means of promoting human mental and physical health. As organized social farming became more professional, some European countries introduced support centres to assist in its development. This paper reports on a study that examined the experience of such support centres in the Netherlands, Norway and Flanders to assess their current activities and their impact on social farmers who kept livestock. Information was gathered through interviews and online questionnaires. The Dutch farmers had generally restructured their livestock activities to meet some of the demands of social farming, whereas the Flemish farmers had not adapted their system, as they derived their main income from farming rather than from social care.