Social Farming 01 / A New Imagination for Rural Europe: Farm Regeneration Provides Social Services

A New Imagination for Rural Regeneration: Opening the Farm Gate to Provide Social Services

Since the end of World War II, an agricultural revolution has risen across Europe, with specialized large-scale agriculture replacing the traditional small-but-beautiful farming society. The intensive production model of large-scale monoculture rapidly raised crop productivity, yet it also relied excessively on pesticides and chemical fertilizers, leaving behind problems such as overproduction, environmental destruction and excessive specialization. EU countries have come to realize that agriculture is the guardian of public health, and that rural development is no longer merely agricultural production in the narrow sense. They value the countryside as a national social and cultural asset, and believe that the overall development of the countryside should be considered together with agriculture, society, history, culture, the natural environment, ecological restoration and public health.

In low-population-density rural areas of Europe, just as in countries around the world, there is a crisis of agricultural decline. Population aging, land left fallow, land abandoned, and the survival or abandonment of villages are all important issues. How to maintain agricultural production systems, create new job opportunities in rural areas, improve rural living environments and economic and cultural conditions, promote equal development opportunities between urban and rural areas, and avoid the loss of rural population requires seeking a better balance among the values of people, the planet and prosperity.

It is against this background that the concept of Social Farming has gradually taken shape. The idea of social farming looks to use existing agricultural systems and local rural resources, and through innovative models of cooperation, to build a new form of partnership between rural areas and the outside world, thereby bridging the distance between city and countryside, improving the quality of life in rural areas, and seeking to provide solutions for declining rural business models.