Planting the ‘care farm’ seed: ServiceNet touts its therapeutic farm in Hatfield a model for first-ever conference at UMass

BY SAMUEL GELINAS

DAILY HAMPSHIRE GAZETTE

THURSDAY, JANUARY 16TH, 2025

AMHERST — As visitors from throughout the country toured ServiceNet’s successful Prospect Meadow Farm in Hatfield on Monday to learn about “care farming” — a therapeutic approach that combines agriculture and health care — Shawn Robinson shared the story of an employee who was thriving while working at the 18-acre property.

“He’s on the spectrum, and this was one of his first jobs,” Robinson, director of vocational services for ServiceNet, told his audience. “And I remember him coming after Christmas to me with a big smile on his face. And he told me because it was how excited he was to tell his cousins, his aunts, his uncles, about his job. … He was able to say, ‘I work at this awesome farm.’

“Having a job matters. … It gives you dignity,” said Robinson.

The Prospect Meadow Farm, which recently expanded to Pittsfield, is a prime example of a care farm, which Robinson describes as “a place where people can go find community, work with their hands and work the earth to help them feel better.”

Robinson’s tour was part of a three-day National Care Farming Conference, the first of its kind, that drew 170 care farmers from 26 states to the Pioneer Valley this week.

Shawn Robinson, the VP of Vocational Services at Prospect Meadow Farm in Hatfield, leads a tour of the farm to a group during the Care Farming conference held this week.

Shawn Robinson, the VP of Vocational Services at Prospect Meadow Farm in Hatfield, leads a tour of the farm to a group during the Care Farming conference held this week.

Not even 30 years ago, the idea of care farming hadn’t even been cited as a term, and even now remains obscure.

While not quite a business and different from a traditional nonprofit, care farming is a therapeutic approach that allows participants to engage in farming tasks that promote physical and mental well-being, social interaction and skill development. Care farming can support people dealing with mental health challenges and those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

For Woody Woodroof, executive director of the Care Farming Network, the conference that ended Wednesday represents a swelling “movement” in the U.S. toward care farming — a transformation from 1996 when he founded his care farm, Red Wiggler Care Farm in Clarksburg, Md.

Like many of the 300 care farms in the country that are part of the Care Farming Network, his farm was founded as an opportunity for community members with disabilities to earn a living and hold a job while increasing the supply of fresh food in his community. But his model at the time was nuanced, making networking and brainstorming impossible.

“We’d go to a conference on farming, and they’d go, ‘Oh you’re a nonprofit,’ ” he said, adding that at a disabilities-related conference he would be told “you run a business.”

But this week’s conference, held mostly at UMass Amherst, changes that. Hosted by the Care Farming Network and co-sponsored by ServiceNet, it allowed participants to see care farming’s “breadth and diversity,” but also its “shared purpose and mission,” said Kate Mudge of Minnesota, the network’s co-director.

“Many farms here are serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, but there’s care farms that are focusing on mental health services, substance abuse disorders, grief and trauma therapy,” Mudge said. “Some farms grow vegetables. Some do animal-assisted interventions — animal therapy, if you will. Some grow mushrooms. Some do hydroponics. So there is really a wide variety of what people are doing.”

On Monday, the conference began at Prospect Meadow Farm, which was toured and touted as a model for care farming.

Founded in 2011, Prospect Meadow employs over 120 people with disabilities as farmhands and also features carpentry. This year, the farm had its largest participation in community-supported agriculture, or CSA, said Robinson — 175 community members bought shares of produce from the farm before this year’s growing season.

Jason Vanwulven, a farmer at Plant For A Change in Tennessee, uses a drill for the first time while working with Tyler Butzer, a carpentry farm hand at Prospect Meadow Farm in Hatfield, to make a bird house during a tour of Prospect Meadow Farm in Hatfield as part of the Care Farming conference held this week.

Jason Vanwulven, a farmer at Plant For A Change in Tennessee, uses a drill for the first time while working with Tyler Butzer, a carpentry farm hand at Prospect Meadow Farm in Hatfield, to make a bird house during a tour of Prospect Meadow Farm in Hatfield as part of the Care Farming conference held this week.

Robinson explained how each employee who works for the farm receives a wage, is supplied with transportation to and from work and is also able to share in the produce they work toward. The Prospect Meadow model, Woodroof explains, is “a fairly large organization within a fairly large organization. But care farms can be as small as one or two people.”

Conference participants were able to both network and learn alternate strategies from presenters, workshops, and brainstorming.

One such participant was Cape Abilities Farm on Cape Cod, which shared its story of how growing tomatoes led the farm to becoming a community staple in Dennis.

Mark Bartley, who has directed the program since 2013 after the farm was founded in 2010, said the care farm originated out of a desire for his nonprofit organization to expand community-based employment opportunities.

“In the business of human service, there’s a push for something called community-based employment and that’s a very noble idea, but it’s very hard to do,” he said, explaining that the care farming model has been ideal.

“Tomatoes put us on the map, because restaurants would buy our tomatoes. The next thing you know, the Cape Abilities Farm is known on the Cape. … And more and more people jumped on, so between restaurants putting us on their menu … then other parts of the community were buying flowers from us.”

Apart from the success Cape Abilities has seen, he also related how the workers find it fulfilling.

“If you’ve ever had a doctor’s order, you know what it’s like to have a disability. Because people are like, ‘Oh wait, I’ll get that for you.’ It’s like leave me alone. Let me do this,” Bartley said. He added that care farming has allowed employees “to do things and then to be challenged,” and has allowed them employment opportunities outside the farm.

Corinne Cook with R.O.O.T.S. in the city of Gardner — an acronym for Resilient-Optimistic-Open-Minded-Thriving — has for three years conducted a pilot program serving adolescents and young adults from 12 to 24 and an outpatient care unit for recovering addicts. She said the impact of the 115-acre farm has been immense.

“Just being outside, being with the animals, in and of itself, is so healing,” she said. “Then you add different therapeutic approaches and evidence-based practices tailored to each individual, what they’re struggling with, and it’s just incredible. … There’s no lab coats. Were all in jeans and T-shirts. We’re all just together and its really special.”

Magic Sowers is new to the practice of care farming and came to brainstorm as she begins a community farm in Baltimore. With a background in healing arts and social work, she aims to connect urban inner city communities with the therapeutic benefits of nature and farming. She also seeks to help the elderly, those impacted by prenatal drug exposure, as she emphasized the need for care farming for the betterment of community.

“I just want to see how everybody is adding their own spice and own flavor to this whole idea of care farming and this whole healing aspect to it,” she said. “I’m just trying to bring that into creating a space for us where we can work with some of the inner city, Baltimore city youth and bringing to helping them connect back to the magic and healing aspect of nature.”

Care Farming Network anticipates holding another conference for next year in a location that’s yet to be chosen.

Samuel Gelinas can be reached at [email protected].

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