FARCura

Duration: 23 months (October 2019 - August 2021)
LIT Project Budget:  €40,236
Total Project Budget:  €265,863

What is FARCura?

Summary

FARCura is an Erasmus-funded European project with eight partners from four European countries (Ireland, Slovenia, Germany, Belgium & Portugal. The project is focused on developing knowledge and skills in the area of social farming.

'Social farming' - also known as 'green care' or 'care farming' - is the therapeutic use of farming landscapes and practices on part, or all, of a working farm in order to provide health, social, educational and/or vocational supports to a small number of people at risk of social exclusion.

The FARCura project wishes to equip stakeholders (farmers, social farming representative bodies, social and health care providers, farming representative bodies) with the necessary knowledge, skill-sets and competencies to develop and enhance social farming, an innovative approach to fostering social inclusion amongst marginalized groups within rural society throughout Europe.

• Analysing the current status of social farming in each of the partner countries and at a European level.
• Developing an online training course on key aspects of social farming and making this available on the project's website, to direct beneficiaries through an open source training platform.
• Hosting a series of conferences and training sessions for direct beneficiaries of social farming.

Project update: 

The DU’s Rural Development team thoroughly enjoyed attending the Social Farming National Conference (Ireland) as part of the  FARCURA Erasmus + PROJECT on 24 Friday September, 2021.  

The Conference took place at Mike O’Sé, Social Farm, Mastergeehy, South Kerry and was organised by South Kerry Development Company. 

Over 70 people attended, including participants from the Kerry Social Farming host farms. Host farmers offers on average 4 hours placement per week to people at risk of social inclusion and or living with disabilities in South Kerry.    

The findings from the applied Social Farming Volunatary Model, organised by Kerry Social Farming and SKDP in conjunction with LIT and the FARCURA Project, revealed the positive impact and connections made between participants and farmers. 

The collaboration has shown the impact that therapeutic farming landscapes can have on confidence building, quality of life and self-esteem through providing a sense of purpose, a vital sense of inclusion, and togetherness for those at risk or social exclusion, for one reason or another.  

Feedback from participants also included a reduced feeling of loneliness. The project will be completed at the end of October 2021.