Kerry Social Farming Helping People and Communities

The Kerry Social Farming Project commenced in 2013 by South Kerry Development Partnership CLG. With the support of Social Inclusion and Activation (SICAP) funds to get the project off the ground, and Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine CEDRA funding since 2016, our unique voluntary model has grown from strength to strength.The project is an example of best practice when it comes to strategic collaboration; combining a bottom-up community, rural development led initiative with farmers, participants, local agencies/groups with the support of local and national government. The fact that farmers volunteer their time with participants, and in turn are fully supported to make the farm safer for participants and have full on the ground support to deliver social farming, means that we can offer long term placements (some as long as 4 or more years) to participants to attend the same farm, thus offering real tangible benefits to farmers and participants to reconnect with their communities, develop real friendships, and strengthen the social fabric of rural towns, villages, localities across the county. We know that social farming works and the Kerry model of social farming works, helping to create stronger communities. We believe our successful project is a template for how social farming can be adopted across the country. This project delivers in a practical and strategic real way a means to create stronger and more connected communities in line with the vision of Project Ireland 2040.