Soziale Landwirtschaft in Deutschland – Eine qualitative Untersuchung der Strukturen und Prozesse

In recent decades, a change has taken place in Germany's rural areas. Not only has food production become more sustainable through more organic farming and small farms, but the social aspect has also recently been integrated into agriculture. In this context, more and more farmers have opened their farms and their work to other people, which has led to the emergence of Social Farming and characterizes it. Different groups are included on these farms: people with various disease, dementia, autism, as well as old and young people that may be disadvantaged or marginalized. Substance abusers and offenders can also benefit from Social Farms. Due to the very individual approach and motivations by the creation of social farm, each is structured and organized in its own way and differs from others. However, they can be divided into three constitutional types: (1) privately managed farms, (2) farms that are embedded in a welfare or religious services, (3) individuals that contract a cooperation with an institution for disabled people. In contrast to other European countries, such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Great Britain, the current state of research in Germany is far behind. What is known is that working within the field of Social Farming is helpful for people in need of assistance because it helps them gain new experiences, feel safe and master new challenges and work. In addition, it is known that the environment has positive effects on those peoples in general. So far, social farms have been roughly categorized, according to their particular goals, but not based on their structural characteristics. In Germany, there is little scientific information available on both the structural and financial aspects of social farms, which is why a detailed, all-encompassing study on Social Farming is needed. For the above-mentioned reasons, the aim of this cumulative dissertation is to provide new insights into the field of Social Farming in Germany, based on previous scientific research combined with a personal investigation. The focus, on one hand, lies on internal farm structures, and, on the other hand, on the financing processes, training of the staff, the local networking the integrated group in its homogeneity together with the benefits of human-animal interactions, which arise between farm animals and people in need of help. Additionally, social, individual and environmental factors of Social Farming are analyzed, along with the motivation of farmers who practice it. In order to analyze structures and processes holistically, theoretical approaches to what has been researched so far are used as a basis. For this reason, the current state of scientific research and some concepts such as animal-assisted therapy, ecosystem services and anthropological agriculture has been examined first. To obtain the research results, 27 qualitatively guided interviews were conducted. The self-conducted expert interviews provide the database and results in order to work out contexts, processes and structures. For this purpose, different actors of social agriculture have been interviewed with the help of a guiding questionnaire. In order to obtain extensive informations from the respective transcriptions, they have been thoroughly sorted and coded. The results of the three research papers can be summarized as follows: 1. In contrast to other European countries, such as, Belgium or the Netherlands, no processes of animal-assisted therapy take place on social farms in Germany. This is because neither the animals nor most of the professional staff (particularly among private farmers) have completed an appropriate specific training for therapy. Nevertheless, the interactions can be characterized as animal-assisted activities. This human-animal relationship has positive effects on the development of people in need of assistance. 2. Thus, they acquire new competences through the work with farm animals, which can be classed in the following three groups: emotional learning, motoric learning, and social learning: Working with animals not only organizes the integrated people´s daily routines but also develop a certain peace into their lives and act as a catalytic converter to live better with other people. 3. The combination of certain animal with people who show specific disease pattern to be advantageous. 4. The motivation and goals of the farm managers are mainly due to their - mostly anthroposophical - attitude and include four areas: Society, the environment, fellow human beings, and their own farm. Important for all aforementioned areas is the inclusion as well as the promotion of acceptance of the weaker fellow human beings in a sustainable (living) space, where 5. Not only the supporting but also the cultural services are promoted, which are parts of the ecosystem services. 6. Farms practicing Social Farming tend not only to have different structures but distinct financing depending on the type of constitution. While the small farms have a high proportion of financing through the products they grow, they are characterized by a slow entry into Social Farming, and usually located peripherally, farms embedded in an organization, in contrast, are mostly financed through care rates or social services and are found in the peri-urban area. In addition, on those social farms, the number of integrated people and the quantity of different professional workers is higher compared to those on small, private organized farms, which is why targeted development-promoting measures are (or can be) implemented there. No correlation was found between the type of constitution and the structure of the integrated group of people nor with the working hours or the presence of the residential community. In the future, it is important to recognize small social farms and promote them statewide, both by law and governmental aids, so that they can be preserved, as they promiss many potentials.