implementation of care farming programs for disabled people - manual
TRANSCRIPT
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How Do Networks Matter?
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE INNOVATIVEPRACTICE OF CARE FARMING
IN AUSTRIA AND THE NETHERLANDS
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Dr.rer.soc.oec
Created within the framework of the
Doctoral School ‚Sustainable Development’ (dokNE)
University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna
Mag.a Renate Renner
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Supervisors:
Univ.Prof. Michael Pregernig
(Albert-Ludwigs-University, Freiburg)
Univ.Prof. Bernhard Freyer
(University of Natural Ressources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna)
Univ.Prof. Karl Werner Brand
(Technical University, Munich)
Univ.Prof. James Bingen
(Michigan State University, USA)
Reviewers:
Univ.Prof. Karl Werner Brand
(Technical University, Munich)
Priv. Doz.in Dr.in Ika Darnhofer
(University of Natural Ressources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna)
Vienna, January 2010
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This thesis was realised within the framework of the Doctoral School for `Sustainable
Development` (dokNE) at the University of Natural Ressources and Applied Life Sciences. The
Doctoral School was subsidised by the University of Natural Ressources and Applied Life
Sciences (BOKU), the Federal Ministry for Science and Research (research program
proVISION), the Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water
Management, the federal states of Lower Austria and Styria and the city of Vienna.
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Abstract
Keywords: Care Farming, Social Network Analysis, Innovation, Social Capital
Challenges like technical progress and increasing competition through the globalisation of
markets often lead farmers to either abandon their farm, to intensify their business or to offer
multifunctional farming. An increasing phenomenon in Europe is care at farms, which is one
form of multifunctional agriculture in order to reach new income possibilities at the farm.
The new practice of care farming allows integration, care and rehabilitation of people with special
needs by using an agricultural surrounding. Care farming ranges from elderly care at the farm to
animal assisted therapy for people with special needs etc. Care farming addresses current socialproblems such as migration, the growth of the population, the question of rural development etc.
Care farming could be one new alternative for care, which is why this social innovation is highly
socio-politically relevant.
A premise of this work is that social relations have a variety of functions and influence social life,
particularly because human beings are social beings. Social relations influence self-esteem directly
by social recognition or social learning processes and produce the feeling of being backed up by
somebody. In this respect, this supports the development of an innovative practice like care
farming.
Within social networks resources can be produced that could facilitate actors within the network
with larger options for their action. In this respect the term of social capital is relevant, because
different theorists believe that through the relationship between actors, social capital, or
otherwise resources, can be produced, which could enhance the development and later the
stabilisation of a new practice. Consequently, the leading question of this research is “How does
farmers’ personal support network and social capital influence the innovation process in the case
of care farming?”
In order to adapt the research, innovation-, network- and social capital theory is applied in order
to structure the process of innovation and to emphasise characteristics of different periods and
the obtained and needed form of support, similarly of social capital.
This sample contains interviews with 38 farmers from Austria and the Netherlands that practice
this form of care at the farm. Hence it allows considering firstly the importance of care farmer
unions through which a varying amount of group social capital is obtained, secondly it considers
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the importance of further forms of support provided by different actors and thirdly support of
national differences in terms of a different political cultures that influences the demand to
professionalise. This is why a comparative research design was applied and realised by the
research cooperation with the University of Wageningen.
Methodologically, the qualitative personal network approach was applied and verbal and visual
data, as well as care farmer interviews and expert interviews, were triangulated in order to
increase the understanding about the process of innovation. In addition to that, expert interviews
were realised in order to increase context information and to better interpret the interviews with
care farmers, and also to understand the development and positions of different experts in terms
of the new practice.
Findings have shown that some supporters and forms of support are indispensable, while others
only increase the probability of stabilising the project. Findings have also shown that a dynamic
of the support network exists. For instance new information that initiates the innovation is
important at the beginning and predominantly transferred by people someone meets only
occasionally, whereas family member’s esteem support and later also their practical support is
important during the whole process of innovation. It was observed that business tasks, the
demand to professionalise and emotional stress can be challenging for care farmers and that
different support networks are used in order to cope with that. Regional care farmer unions with
high group social capital have an impact on the stabilisation of projects for some types of care
farmers, but ultimately represent additional profit for all. Differences between most terminators
and adopters are related to the match of clients and care farmers, the perceived emotional stress
and the willingness for or the state of professionalisation in terms of education and/or farm
adaption. This research proved the importance of a continuing contact between care farmers and
clients’ key carer givers and care experts to be indispensable in order to stabilise a care farming
project and to decrease emotional stress.
In addition to that the comparative study discovered that the existing political culture of both
countries generally becomes visualised in the case of care farming. Austrian care farmers have a
higher demand to professionalise and a lower disposition to experiment with the new practice,
whereas the contrary can be said for the Dutch.
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Acknowledgement
The first doctoral school at the University of Natural Ressources and Applied Life Sciences,
named Doctoral School for `Sustainable Development (dokNE), was started in March 2007 and
finished at the end of January 2010. A multidisciplinary team guided seventeen PhD students
from different disciplines to realise their theses, with the individual projects showing a different
extent of interdisciplinary interconnection. Participants of the doctoral school had the chance to
contribute to sustainability research in a narrow or wider sense, and to realise the thesis by
cooperating with a larger research network.
First of all I would like to thank my supervisors Michael Pregernig, Karl-Werner Brand and
Bernhard Freyer, who have guided me through the research process for three years, investedmany hours of discussions that provided me with important insights and helped me to concretise
and to realise this study. I have had substantial discussions with them from which I have
benefited considerably. Michael, Werner and Bernd were always available at short notice for
meetings if there was an urgent necessity to talk and I am very grateful for everything I have
learned from them. I am aware that I had many more chances for discussions with them than a
PhD student can normally expect to have. Ika Darnhofer played a special role; she helped me to
narrow down the field of study and significantly influenced the choice of the focus on care
farming, which stabilised the research. I am grateful for having met her and for the long talks
during lunch through which I learned much more than aspects that are visible within the final
academic end product. Jim Bingen’s interest in this research and his demand of high standards
motivated me, his critical comments and questions induced me to once more reflect my research
and to make necessary modifications. He helped me to analyse the data with a stronger focus and
even if he only started to influence the dissertation in the last phase of writing, which was beyond
question a challenge for both of us, I owe an advance of the dissertation’s qualitiy to him.
Any study based on fieldwork as this one is, involves the cooperation of many people who invest
their precious time to answer a lot of questions, farmers who worked the whole day and offered
their sparse spare time mostly in the evening, but also experts who are often under time pressure
were willing to spend a minimum of one hour for an interview. Therefore, I want to thank all
respondents for taking part in this research process.
Many thanks to Dorit Haubenhofer, who was my direct cooperation partner, provided me with
literature from the care farming field, helped to realise my research stay in the Netherlands andrealized the interviews with Dutch care farmers by following the interview guideline accurately. I
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am very thankful for that. Furthermore, I cherish the offered credit of trust coming from
Jacques Neeteson and Hein Korevaar who enabled realising the research cooperation through
their approval to funding the Dutch part of this cooperation. Moreover, I would like to express
my gratitude to Jan Hassink and Marjolein Ellings with whose help I was able to come into
contact with the right experts of the Dutch care farming sector. They have been doing research in
this field for years and I am very obliged for shared knowledge and providing me with context
information that was important for interpreting and understanding the interplay of different
actors in terms of care farming within this country.
Thanks to Harald Katzmaier, who provided information about how to transfer the qualitative
data into a network diagram and how to make it possible to present them visually. In order to put
his quickly explained formulas into practice it proved to be advantageous to be a member of amultidisciplinary team. I am especially grateful for the support of my colleague and computer
scientist Johannes Schmidt. Although he could have taken holidays, as he had already finished
his thesis, he decided to adapt the formulas for my research and showed me how to apply them.
Many thanks to Ulla Klopf who helped to improve the design of the network diagrams.
I also want to thank Sarah Maier and Philip Reid for their careful proofreading of the
manuscript. Sarah taught me a lot and has always been available for me. I would like to express
my gratitude to Heidi Leopold, Anja Bauer and Judith Feichtinger, who I had many discussions about different scientific approaches with, but who also became important friends
during the time of my study. I really appreciate the many inspiring discussions about our work
and a pleasant working atmosphere with Sebastian Helgenberger, my office and Dokne
colleague. Overall I want to thank all members of the doctoral college, doctoral students and
training staff, who came from different disciplines and expressed various views and thus helped
me to get a broad picture of science.
Last but in no way least I would like to thank my sister Maria Renner for always believing in me,
and Arno Studeregger, who has always supported me, took my mind off things with many
climbing and ski tours togehter and helped me to get new energy for my work through many
talks.
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Contents
1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................................13
2 Care Farming.....................................................................................................................................19
22..11 Definition, forms and distribution of care farming across Europe.................................. 21
22..22 Care and farming: A short historical review........................................................................ 25
22..33 Current relevance of care farming.........................................................................................27
22..44 State of knowledge in terms of care farming - a brief review ........................................... 29
22..55 Premises and leading question...............................................................................................32
2.5.1 The innovative practice of care farming......................................................................32
2.5.2 Why is it essential to focus on networks at all?..........................................................34
3 Theories..............................................................................................................................................37
33..11 Theories of innovation............................................................................................................39
33..22 Social network theory..............................................................................................................44
3.2.1 Historical development of social network theory......................................................44
3.2.2 Relevant concepts of social network analysis.............................................................47
33..33 Social capital theory.................................................................................................................58
3.3.1 Different perspectives on social capital by Bourdieu, Coleman, Burt and Putnam.............................................................................................................................................58
3.3.2 Comparison of the different perspectives on social capital...................................... 61 3.3.3 Forms of social capital and its importance for innovations.....................................62
3.3.4 Operationalisation of social capital at a group level .................................................. 64
33..44 Connection of theoretical strands and working hypotheses ............................................. 71
4 Methods and Techniques.................................................................................................................77
44..11 Case selection ........................................................................................................................... 79
4.1.1 Expert interviews............................................................................................................79
4.1.2 Interviews with care farmers.........................................................................................80
44..22 Data collection - Techniques applied....................................................................................82
4.2.1 The expert interview.......................................................................................................82
4.2.2 The narrative interview..................................................................................................83
4.2.3 The problem-centred interview....................................................................................84
4.2.4 Network diagram............................................................................................................86
4.2.5 Additional information about the procedure of data collection.............................. 88
44..33 Data analysis ............................................................................................................................. 90
5 Exploration and Specification of the Samples’ Context ............................................................. 93 55..11 Austria and the Netherlands: geographical characteristics ................................................ 95
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55..22 Characteristics and differences in terms of the political culture of Austria and theNetherlands.................................................................................................................................................97
55..33 Characteristics and differences in terms of agriculture.....................................................101
55..44 Characteristics and differences in terms of care farming.................................................103
55..55 The care farming development within different political cultures from experts’perspective.................................................................................................................................................111
5.5.1 The Dutch development of care farming..................................................................111
5.5.2 The Austrian development of care farming..............................................................115
55..66 Case profiles............................................................................................................................120
5.6.1 Socio demographic and business related characteristics of the case profiles.......120
5.6.2 Categorisation and characteristics of groups of care farmers in terms of socialcapital .........................................................................................................................................123
6 The Innovation Process, Characteristics and Needs from Care Farmers’ Perspective ........133 66..11 Characteristics of the initiation period................................................................................135
6.1.1 Prehistories and motifs for starting up a care farm .................................................135
6.1.2 Obtained and needed forms of support and of social capital ................................137
66..22 Characteristics of the developmental period......................................................................145
6.2.1 Perceived problems and challenges when developing a care farming project .....145
6.2.2 The role of social capital in order to cope with the demand to professionalize..149
6.2.3 The role of social capital in order to cope with business questions......................153
6.2.4 Supporters and obtained and needed forms of support when developing the carefarming project .........................................................................................................................................161
66..33 Characteristics of the implementation period....................................................................169
6.3.1 Occurring problems and challenges when implementing care farming................169
6.3.2 The role of social capital in order to deal with emotional stress and furtherrelevant supporters...................................................................................................................................172
6.3.3 Supporters and obtained and needed forms of support when implementing carefarming .........................................................................................................................................176
66
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.44 Adoption or termination of the project and relevant circumstances .............................181
6.4.1 Terminators’ circumstances and obtained forms of support and of group socialcapital .........................................................................................................................................181
6.4.2 Adopters’ circumstances and obtained forms of support.......................................186
7 Resume and Final Conclusions.....................................................................................................191
8 Appendix ..........................................................................................................................................199
88..11 Care farmer interview guideline...........................................................................................201
88..22 Short questionnaire care farmer...........................................................................................210
88..33
Expert interview guideline....................................................................................................212
88..44 Interview appendix – Protocol.............................................................................................216
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88..55 Operationalisation of forms of social capital.....................................................................218
88..66 List of abbreviations..............................................................................................................221
88..77 List of tables ...........................................................................................................................222
88..88 List of figures..........................................................................................................................224
88..99 Literature.................................................................................................................................225
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1
INTRODUCTION
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An increasing phenomenon in Europe is “Care Farming”, a new practice that provides people
with special needs with meaningful work and offers new forms of therapy and care. This research
focuses on original farmers that offer care at their farm and regards them as an economically and
politically weak group; hence the author assumes that this group needs different forms of support
in order to stabilise the new practice. The weakness of the group of farmers and why they are
struggling with a lot of difficult conditions is rooted in the past.
According to DIPPER (2008) if modernity means a radical end of tradition, then it started in the
agricultural sector in the second half of the 20th century. Economic historians name it
“industrialisation of agriculture”, meaning the intensive use of fertiliser and pesticides and
engineered mono-cultural farming to increase food production. Environmental historians report
of increasing environmental problems as a result of industrialised agriculture (cf. D IPPER 2008,111). Intensive agriculture increased but this is in the meantime not recognised positively
anymore and less desired by society. For instance one indicator of this is food trends that show
an orientation towards health and fairness (cf. BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR L AND- UND
FORSTWIRTSCHAFT 2008, 157-160).
In the contemporary time, agriculturalists have to cope with major challenges like technical
progress and the increasing competition through globalisation of markets. Additionally,
agricultural policy has changed and financial support for agriculture in Europe by nationalgovernments and the European Union is decreasing. Beside the fact that today many farms
become abandoned because potential successors do not perceive positive future perspectives in
continuing a farm (W IESINGER 2000, 219-220), there are two contrasting trends within the
European agricultural sector in the present time. The number of agricultural enterprises and
agricultural population tend to decrease while the size of agricultural areas managed by farmers
increase, with the consequence of high specialisation (cf. BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR L AND- UND
FORSTWIRTSCHAFT 2009, 206). As a second strategy to cope with current challenges, different
types of diversification, such as value-added agriculture and agri-tourism, emerge. Value-added
agriculture, for instance the production of innovative products or organic farming, has increased,
especially in Austria (cf. BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR L AND- UND FORSTWIRTSCHAFT 2007, 194).
According to R ENTING et al. (2008) activities of agricultural diversification correspond to the
strategy of “deepening activities” and that of “broadening activities”. The former means that
relations between a farm and the agro-food supply chain are reconfigured by converting for
instance from conventional to organic farming, whereas broadening activities means expanding the relations between the farm and the rural area by providing services for the non-food market,
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such as agri-tourism, care farming etc. (cf. R ENTING, OOSTINDIE et al. 2008, 372). The latter is
also understood as multifunctional agriculture and the increasing amount of scientific work
related to that topic e.g. K NICKEL and R ENTING (2000), R ENTING, OOSTINDIE et al. (2008);
R ANDALL (2002) and VAN HUYLENBROECK , DURAND et al. (2003) can be seen as an indicator for
the importance of this expanding phenomenon. In the process of industrialisation, agriculture lost
social and environmental functions although this has changed again recently, especially because of
the trend of the diversification of agriculture.
Compared to the above-mentioned current popular and widely known forms of diversifications,
the minor development of care farming is relatively unknown. As defined by the SOF AR
RESEARCH GROUP (2007), care farming means that care, rehabilitation or integration of socially
disadvantaged groups or people with special needs is provided in an agricultural surrounding. Itstarget group can be manifold; it ranges from children to elderly, from long-term unemployed to
mentally or physically disabled people (cf. IBID. 2007, 88).
Beside the fact that farmers try to enhance their own situation, we can also say that the signs of
the times enable the development of care farming. Past experiences have shown negative effects
of institutionalisation in the care sector. In the present time society is shifting towards client-
oriented care and responsibilities for care are decentralised and shifted to municipalities. Beyond
that, individualised society has to cope with new forms of diseases or problems such as thesuperannuation of society, with the consequence of a lack of places to care for elderly etc. Care
farming seems to offer some solutions to counteract current social developments. The special
offer of care farming meets the current need for calm places that are distinguished by a close
touch with nature and simplicity. Furthermore, through the individualisation in our globalising
world, choices and pressure to perform are increasing. The western world has to cope with a lot
of new problems, for instance overworked people, loss of contact to nature and a superannuation
of the population. Agriculture can offer a special surrounding to society with easy manual work
and new forms of relaxation, for the lifestyle and rehabilitation of people who need a decrease of
the speed of life.
However, the short description of current developments shows the importance of supporting
innovative forces to make sure that society will be able to overcome these new challenges. Care
farming has been overlooked for its potential to help assure or enhance rural livelihoods and
sustainability. Among other projects, care farming can be an auspicious practice to answer the
outcomes of social change and is socio-politically and scientifically highly relevant. New practicesin general need to be supported in order to enable its diffusion and stabilisation. Hence, the focus
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of this study explores the form of support that is necessary at a particular stage of the innovation
process and from whom this support can be provided in order to find out how the new practice
can be stabilised.
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2
CARE FARMING
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22..11 Definition, forms and distribution of
care farming across Europe
There is a wide range of different terms used to describe the expanding phenomenon of care on
farms, hence names like Farming for Health, Social Farming, Green Care, Care Farming, Green Exercise,
Agricultural Therapy etc. are used within different European countries (cf. DESSEIN 2008, 15). In
German speaking literature the phenomenon is termed “Soziale Landwirtschaft” ( VAN ELSEN
2008, 20) and “zorglandbouw ” (BLOM-Z ANDSTRA and H ASSINK 2008) in Dutch literature. In this
research I use the term care farming , which is defined by the SoFar-research group (2007) asfollows:
Social farming (or ‘care farming’ or ‘green care’) is a term used to describe a wide range of diversefarming practices aimed at promoting disadvantaged people’s rehabilitation or care and/orcontributing towards the integration of people with ‘low contractual capacity’. (SOF AR -RESEARCH-GROUP 2007, 88).
BRAASTAD, G ALLIS et al. (2007) define green care as
[…] the utilisation of agricultural farms as a base for promoting human mental and physical health.[…] In the countryside and on farms, the animals, the plants, the garden, the forest, and thelandscape are used in recreational or work-related activities […] (BRAASTAD, G ALLIS et al. 2007,14).
The above-mentioned definition by Braastad, Gallis et al. (2007) in my point of view includes
animal assisted therapy and horticulture. H ASSINK and VAN DIJK (2006) on the other hand
distinguish between green care, horticultural therapy and animal assisted therapy to put the focus
on diverse forms of care on farms. The dominance of different forms of care farming varies in
European countries. The terms are defined as follows:
Green care farms represent a working environment where a diversity of target groups is performing meaningful activities.
Horticultural therapy, therapeutic horticulture, healing gardens and healing landscapes. Plants,horticulture, gardens and landscapes are used in therapy or in a recreative setting in order toimprove well-being or to reach predefined goals.
Animal-assisted therapy, education and activities. Animals are used in therapy or in a recreational oreducational setting in order to improve well-being or to reach pre-defined goals (H ASSINK and VAN
DIJK 2006, 347-348).
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H ASSINK and VAN DIJK (2006) outline that for instance horticultural therapy is significant in the
UK (with a number of around 800 projects) and in Germany with around 400 hospitals and
rehabilitation centres that provide horticultural therapy as part of work therapy. In Austria and
Sweden it has also obtained status but in other European countries this form of therapy is not
recognised (cf. H ASSINK and VAN DIJK 2006, 351). Additionally, animal assisted therapy, which
means providing therapy with farm animals, is not widespread and not widely accepted. Horse
therapy is acknowledged in Finland, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Animal assisted therapy
with farm animals e.g. goats, pigs, cows etc. seems to be an Austrian phenomenon (cf. H ASSINK
and VAN DIJK 2006, 351-352).
Broadly speaking, following H ASSINK ’S AND VAN DIJK ’S definition, green care is predominantly
practiced in the Netherlands, Norway, Italy, Belgium, Slovenia and Switzerland. Horticulturaltherapy is recognised predominantly in the UK and Sweden, whereas there is a focus on animal-
related therapy in Finland. In Germany and Austria a development of all three forms of care on
farms is registered (cf. H ASSINK and VAN DIJK 2006, 248).
The term care farm has to be understood as an umbrella term for all above-mentioned forms of
care on farms. The number of care farms differs strongly in European countries. According to
H ASSINK (2006, 347) care farms are not centrally registered and numbered in many countries,
wherefore the following numbers have to be seen as estimations, but still a rough ranking can bemade.
Country Number % of total The Netherlands 700 0.7
Italy 350 0.01
Germany 170 0.03
Flanders 260 0.4
Ireland 90 0.08
Slovenia 20 <0.01France >1200 >0.02
Table 1: Number of care farms compared to the total number of farms in percent. In: SoFar-research group,
2007, 47.
According to the SOF AR -RESEARCH-GROUP (2007) the Netherlands, with a number of about 700
care farms (in the meantime it is estimated that they already have about 1000 care farms), which is
0,7% of the total number of farms, seems to be the leading country, followed by Flanders.
Slovenia and Italy come in last with 0.01% of care farms within their country (cf. SOF AR -
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RESEARCH-GROUP 2007, 47). Austria is not included in the table above and care farms are not
numbered in this country, but it is estimated that there are about 250 care farms in existence in
Austria (cf. W IESINGER , NEUHAUSER et al. 2006, 233).
In addition to differences in forms of care on farms and the number of care farms in Europe, the
target group can be manifold e.g. “psychiatric patients, mentally disabled persons, people with
learning disabilities, people with burnout problems, people with drug problems, young people,
elderly people, and clients of social service” (BRAASTAD, G ALLIS et al. 2007, 14). According to
H ASSINK (2006, 350) children and psychiatric clients as a target group are dominant in Norway,
whereas vulnerable children are the main clients of care farms in Switzerland. A mixed client
group is common in Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands, e.g. drug addicts, people with mental
problems and people with burn-out are working together at the same care farm (cf. H ASSINK and VAN DIJK 2006, 350).
Real worldly care farming can be practiced by a (farming) family business but also by a large (care)
institution. It can be distinguished between care farms that predominantly focus on either
agricultural production or on care. The terms used to describe this difference are diverse in
European countries. According to H ASSINK (2006) in Italy for instance care farms that offer care
for a certain client group but are predominantly oriented on production are called “family farms”,
in Austria they are termed “traditional household-based schemes” and in the Netherlands,
Belgium and Slovenia they are called “independent farms cooperating with health institutions”
(cf. H ASSINK and VAN DIJK 2006, 350). Farms that are more care oriented are not necessarily
started up by or employ a professional farmer, rather utilise clients and social workers to fulfill
agricultural duties - the aim of agricultural production is secondary to the aim of care.
Care oriented farms are known in Italy as “social cooperatives”, which means that “specialised
social units [ … ] start with professional training and therapeutic practices with specific target
groups” but have agreements with local farms in order to practice the care activities on their land
(DI I ACOVO, SENNI et al. 2006, 300). Similar to that, Austria offers “nursing places”, refering to
care institutions that incorporate agricultural work (cf. W IESINGER , NEUHAUSER et al. 2006, 235).
Furthermore, there are “institutional farms” in the Netherlands, Belgium and Slovenia (cf.
H ASSINK and VAN DIJK 2006, 350). Institutional farms are farms that occupy the status of a
health organisation (cf. ELINGS and H ASSINK 2006, 168). In this case the focus is on care farms
practiced by a farming family business, the different duties of which are detailed below.
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If professional farmers start up a care farm, a variety of farmer’s duties emerge, depending on the
goals in terms of care. Goals can range from “daytime occupation, work training, social inclusion,
rehabilitation, education, place to live, to specific therapeutic goals” (H ASSINK and VAN DIJK
2006, 350). Hence, farmers can be responsible for instructing clients on what to work on and how
to work at the farm, provide them with easy manual work and organise a daily schedule, or
alternatively simply provide a section of their farm for clients and their caretakers. If the latter is
the case, farmers have to offer for instance rooms, toilets and canteens accessible for people with
impairments. If animal assisted therapy is offered, farmers have to train their animals for
therapeutic use and assist the therapist. Usually farmers do not undertake a therapeutic function
but cooperate with professional therapists. That is also why the Austrian Education Centre for
Animal Assisted Therapy requires cooperation of participating partners (professionals from the
social/care sector and from the agricultural sector) who attend a course for animal assisted
therapy together. Moreover, depending on the existence of and membership to support
organisations, farmers have to do administrative work such as the acquisition of clients and are
accountable for the outsourcing of duties.
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22..22 Care and farming: A short historical
review Care farming is only relatively new, as the practice already existed before industrialisation. It is
known that people with psychological diseases were employed for therapeutic reasons at
european agricultural care stations, for instance, on a farm at Sargossa Hospital, Spain in the 15 th
century (cf. FOUCAULT 1969, 344). However, intellectually disabled people were employed
predominantly in the farming sector during this time rather as maids and menials than as clients
who received working therapy. In this respect agriculture assumed the role of an important
employer in the countryside because a lot of manual work demanded a large number of maids
and menials. But in the time of industrialisation requirements on society changed drastically.
Agriculture became more technical and intense, hence maids and menials where not needed at
farms anymore and the migration to cities increased. Subsequently, healthy and ill people were
separated in society due to the development of institutions for (mentally) ill people.
According to W IESINGER (2006) it was common before industrialisation to care for elderly,
disabled (family members) or people with learning difficulties within the extended family at farms
in rural areas. The transition from the extended to the nuclear family was a consequence of
technical innovations. The development of smaller family systems effected the care situation in a
way that it was less possible to care for people with special needs within the family system
because the nuclear family offered less contact partners or people to care for e.g. disabled family
members (cf. W IESINGER , NEUHAUSER et al. 2006, 234).
Moreover, Hoffmann (2004) describes that European industrialised countries started to establishhighly hierarchically organised institutions for psychiatric patients in the mid 19
thcentury. These
mental institutions called “asylums” were supposed to offer a protected living space for mentally
ill people, to save them from exploitation, pauperisation, abuse etc. (cf. HOFMANN 2004, 4). The
therapy of inhabitants of those mental institutions was oriented on medication and daily life was
organised in terms of hygiene and safety from violence and suicide only, but not in terms of social
life. As a consequence of that, people became hospitalised and socially isolated (cf. IBID. 2004, 5).
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HOFMANN (2004) argues that the reformation of this care system in the 60s and 70s of the 20th
century was propelled by Goffmann who criticised the `total institution` and by Simon Hermann
who reformed the Güterlsoher Hospital in a way which implemented working therapy for mentally
ill clients. Moreover, ideas by Maxwell Jones about group therapy or an equal relationship
between patients and health institution staff influenced the whole reformation process within this
sector in Europe. Extramural facilities were established and instead of the old hierarchically
organised institution a multi-professional team supported the clients in their process of self-
discovery. A decentralisation of those institutions was realised to save inhabitants from alienation
of social life and to decrease other negative side effects like hospitalisation (cf. H OFMANN 2004,
5-8).
In the 1960s the idea of how to care for the elderly shifted from a mainly medical oriented modelto a model with an emphasis on individual demands and an increasing focus on the quality of life
for people in long-term care, for instance in the Netherlands (cf. ELINGS and H ASSINK 2006, 165)
care at farms, otherwise known as “Care Farming”. Contemporary European trends in psychiatric
care are focused on decentralisation of facilities, on ambulant therapy and on moving care to the
municipalities (cf. B AUER 2005, 19). Similar to the negative effects of centralisation and
institutionalisation in the care sector, the trend of intensive farming after industrial revolution
proved to be a failure because of the lack of sustainability in the long term.
Today, society and farmers are beginning to perceive that again a wide range of functions beside
food production are undertaken by agriculture, for instance services for the “non-food market”
like tourism and education or “[e]nvironmental functions” such as increasing biodiversity or
maintaining landscape. “Cultural functions (identity, heritage, etc.)” and [e]thical functions (fair
trade, animal welfare, etc.)” are perceived as less valuable, similar to “[s]ocial functions e.g. food
security, social cohesion [ … ], employment, etc.)” (R ENTING, OOSTINDIE et al. 2008, 366).
Generally, a care farm provides more functions than those normally provided by social servicesHERMANOWSKI (2006, 14); hence a social surplus value is produced by care farming (cf. VAN
ELSEN 2008, 21).
To draw a conclusion, care farming is only relatively new, as just shortly before industrialisation
people with special needs were often integrated into farming. During the time of industrialisation
agriculture became more engineered and therefore offered less manual work. Subsequently,
people with special needs were placed in special institutions (W IESINGER 1991, 34). At the
present time, beside a variety of new duties in agriculture, the therapeutic function of farms has
been rediscovered.
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22..33 Current relevance of care farming
The fact that farmers are looking for new income possibilities with the consequence of thedevelopment of multifunctional agricultures in general and care farming in more specific terms, is
strongly connected to the demand for this offer in times of individualisation and globalisation.
On the one hand, it is expected that care farming represents new options of diversification of
farms and enlarges the role of agriculture and improves its status within society. Care farming
offers possibilities to enhance rural development because it is a new income alternative for
farmers and it produces new working places for other professionals in the countryside. It offers
possibilities to connect urban and rural areas as the case in the Netherlands illustrates when drug
addicts or homeless people from Amsterdam do meaningful work on care farms near the city.
On the other hand there are many developments in contemporary times that demand new forms
of rehabilitation, long-term care etc. Hence care farming could offer alternative forms to live, to
provide therapy and care for people with special needs. A survey about work-related diseases has
shown that one third of all economically active Austrians were “exposed to at least one mental
factor at work that can have adverse effects on health, suffering most frequently from time
pressure or overload of work ” (S TATISTIK -AUSTRIA 2007, 12). Another typical development of contemporary times is that we face a growth of the population. Currently Austria has about
twenty-two percent of inhabitants older than 60, but it is expected that this number will increase
by about one third until the year 2075 (cf. S TATISTIK -AUSTRIA 2008, 16-18).
The demand for care at farms originates from the negative side-effects of a globalised and
individualised world that is characterised by a high multi-optionality; time runs faster and
decisions have not only to be made more often but also more quickly. Demands of the
professional world often do not accord with the capacity of individuals. Subsequently burn-out or
drug abuse for instance accumulates within the time of individualisation because one has to be
able to cope with having multiple options. According to B ARKER (1998) living within a well-
arranged collective with a clear division of responsibilities in which people know exactly what
they will have to do in every moment does not only mean a restriction of freedom but can also
decrease fears and insecurity. Consequently it releases people from responsibilities and allows
them to develop skills and talents within a relatively secure and promotive atmosphere (cf.
B ARKER 1998, 141).
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The aim of care farms is to offer people with special needs a surrounding in which they not only
have clear schedules but also meaningful work based on clients' capabilities in order to support
them to develop further talents and skills and in the best case to become reintegrated into the
“normal” labor market. At this point it is interesting to mention that in the Netherlands there are
already successfully established care farms that specialise in the rehabilitation of burnout patients.
It is recognised that new forms of long-term care will be necessary in the near future, while some
auspicious projects already exist. Examples of these types of projects include a group of
approximately 10 farms in Perg (Upper-Austria) that offer 24h care for the elderly or the
Adelwöhrerhof in Styria that offers 14 people highly professionalised care on a farm. Care farming
offers a specific form of easy manual work, contact to nature and animals, a place to decrease the
speed of life and social inclusion by being integrated within the farmer’s family system. This new
approach focuses on a fruitful connection of modern therapeutic knowledge and that of long-
term care with positive effects of a less specialised agricultural surrounding.
In recent history agriculture has played an important role in the production of food, while also
playing important roles in social cohesion within rural areas and social integration of socially
disadvantaged people. These roles changed gradually because of technical progress; hence farms
became highly specialised and mainly responsible for food production. Around this time, instead
of living within the large farming family system, people with special needs e.g. mentally ill, elderly
etc. were generally put into hierarchically organised institutions. In the present time health care is
more oriented on a cooperative relationship between clients and carer, and care facilities are
becoming decentralised. As a result, the therapeutic function of farms is being rediscovered.
Multifunctional agriculture, especially care farming, can offer auspicious possibilities to answer
existing problems of the individualised society. These aspects of agriculture and the need for new
ideas for long-term care, for the rehabilitation of people struggling with the speed and demands
of life in the current time come together in care farming. Research groups such as SoFar or the
Cost Action Green Care for Agriculture start from the point that care farming offers excellent
possibilities to counteract current social problems.
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22..44 State of knowledge in terms of care
farming - a brief review Scientific work in terms of care farming increased particularly because of three trans-European
projects (SoFar1, Cost Action 866: Green Care in Agriculture2 and Farming for Health3 ) that are
aimed at enhancing the scientific knowledge about the topic and enabling the implementation of
it in practice. For example, the therapeutic effect of care farming is explored in several research
projects e.g. DEMATTIO and SCHOLL (2007), NEUBERGER (2007), H AIGH (2007) SEMPIK (2007).,
The focus is on different forms of care on farms (animal-assisted or horticultural therapy etc.) and
their effects on physical or mental health and on the well-being of different client groups. Health
effects through animal assisted therapy with farm animals are being recognised. According to
DEMATTIO and SCHOLL (2007, 141) clients’ communication skills, attentiveness to their
surrounding and enjoyment of life increased by receiving animal assisted therapy with goats.
Moreover, aspects of the therapeutic effect of care farming are discussed by ENDERS-SLEGERS
(2008) who focuses on the importance of the clients’ role, highlighting the difference between
being a co-worker on a farm and simply being an official client in a health institution.
Some research provides information about the economic aspect of care farming, its necessary
investments compared to its income and existing financial structures (OLTMER and G ABE 2008).
Efforts have been made by farmers and health institutions, as well as new types of business
entities, to make care farming competitive enterprises and to maintain rural landscapes ( VAN
ELSEN, GÜNTHER et al. 2006), with the latter being involved in the “Fordhall Project” (HEGARTY
2007). This project exemplified new possibilities to maintain landscape because “ordinary people
[…] [are] re-connect[ed] with farming – by being part-owners in a community-owned enterprise
committed to “green” principles” (cf. HEGARTY 2007, 113).
1 http://www.sofar-d.de/
2 http://www.umb.no/greencare/
3 http://www.farmingforhealth.org/
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Besides focusing on the potential of care farming for enhancing rural development and
investigating curative or therapeutic effects on some client groups, there is an emphasis on the
potential of care farming in terms of current socio-political questions, such as the problem of
growth of the population and the increasing need for places for long-term care, an example being
DRIEST (2006). Moreover, there are not only investigations on the potential of care farming but
also on the acceptance of this new practice within different segments of society. The willingness
of parents to agree to the participation of their mentally ill children in a care farming project
generates wider recognition and therefore acceptance of care farming in the future e.g. V ADNAL
(2006). The perspective of farmers is taken into account by F JELDAVLI (2006) in investigating why
farmers start up a care farm. This aspect was compared to motifs of those (clients) who utilise
this offer (care at the farm) and enhances understanding about the development of this practice.
In addition to that, research attention is given to the question of how the development of green
care is influenced by different policy schemes and how it is compatible with national health and
social care systems (O´CONNOR 2008). DI I ACOVO (2007) discusses the lack of a juridical and
institutional framework for social farming and describes the policy process that is organised in
circular steps. According to Di Iacovo (2007) the institutionalisation of this innovative practice is
dependent on specific research and education in terms of care farming but also on building
networks from a local to a cross-national level (cf. DI I ACOVO 2007, 64). The importance of
interconnection is emphasised but it is not known how social networks influence the
developmental process. Moreover, care farming has not been discussed as an innovation, while
the process of innovation has neither been investigated from a macro nor from a micro level.
Methods used in care farming research are predominantly qualitative case studies e.g. DRIEST
(2008), VAN ZONNEVELD (2008) and SCHULER (2008) but it is also described by O`CONNER that
participatory photography and video methodologies are applied in research within the SoFar
Project (2008, 47-48). The latter is similar to photo-voice, which is applied in several projects to
give clients a voice to express their situation with their own words (BOOTH T. and W. 2003;
W ANG 1998; W ANG, Y I et al. 1998; W ANG, C ASH et al. 2000). However, as research in to care
farming is only at an exploratory stage, quatitative studies are only considered to constitute the
monority (cf. SEMPIK 2007, 83). Only few quantitative studies e.g. by V ADNAL and K OSMELJ are
broadly acknowledged (2006). Moreover, only a minority of studies applied mixed methods e.g.
HEGARTY (2007) or compared different countries in terms of care farming.
The description of current development stages related to care farming in Europe and the UnitedStates of America (H ASSINK and VAN DIJK 2006) has been a very important research step, but in
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the future it will be necessary to focus on different aspects, such as health effects, political
reorganisation etc. by applying different theoretical frameworks. Only few studies are known to
be based on a theoretical framework. For instance, the social constructivism perspective is applied
by F JELDAVLI (2006) to understand beliefs of public authorities, farmers and health-care
professionals about the health potential of care farming. R ELF (2006) highlights her point of view
about effective theories to investigate health effects of human-nature interaction or that of animal
assisted therapy, while also pointing out the importance of the development of a common
terminology, thereby concluding that research in this field is still in its early stages.
In light of the short overview about current research in terms of care farming exemplifies the
early stage of research in this field. Moreover, most research is rather descriptive than investigated
from a theoretical viewpoint. Research about health effects of care farming seems to bedominating. To put the focus on the potential of care farming for diversifying agriculture, an
investigation of farmers’ needs when implementing this new practice is essential. Little is known
about handicaps experienced by farmers when implementing a care farming project, while care
farming is not yet investigated from innovation- and network-theoretical perspectives. It is
assumed that social networks play an important role when enhancing the development of care
farming but it is not known why and how important social networks are. Putting the focus on
farmers’ perspective and focusing on farmers’ personal network and its influence on the process
of innovation could shed new light on innovation research in the broader sense or more
specifically enhance the understanding of the development of care farming. The aim of the
following chapters is to explain why it is meaningful to understand care farming as an innovation
but also to emphasise and to constitute the importance of a social network perspective. The thesis
of this work is that social networks are important to better understand and explain innovative
practices. The reason for this will be explained in more detail below.
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22..55 Premises and leading question
2.5.1 The innovative practice of care farming
So far, science and politics have been interested in technical rather than social innovations, hence
the latter is rarely studied scientifically (cf. GILLWALD 2000, 1). This might be the reason for its
diffuse definition, however some characteristics of a social innovation can be listed.
In contrast to technical innovation, social innovation means a change of social action (cf.
GILLWALD 2000, 41). This includes new practices that spread and stabilise for a longer time and
that influence social development (cf. IBID. 2000, 10). It is not explained in innovation literature
how much a new practice needs to be diffused within a country, or how substantial and weighty
the change of behavior needs to be to become a social innovation (cf. IBID. 2000, 8).
Nevertheless, examples of social innovations are the environmental movement, marital life
partnership, assembly-line work, fast food chains or the social insurance (cf. IBID. 2000, 3-4).
Furthermore, social innovation can be illustrated by listing contrasting characteristics of technical
and social innovations.
A technical innovation is termed as innovation after its market entrance, while in contrast social
innovation is termed after its diffusion (cf. GILLWALD 2000, 31-32). Once it affects society
beyond its innovation network, it can be institutionalised (cf. K OWOL and K ROHN 2000, 240).
According to GILLWALD (2000) technical innovation is rather positively honoured by society and
easily implementable because politically and economically strong groups are generally responsible
for its development. Quite the opposite can be said for social innovation. It is seldom positively
accepted by society and difficult to implement because economically and politically weak groups
often try to develop it to advance their own situation (cf. IBID. 2000, 37).
Processes of decision and action underlie an innovation, which leads to the assumption that
innovations are always social processes (cf. BLÄTTEL-MINK 2006, 30). According to GILLWALD
(2000), social innovation is different to reformations and social change in a way that reformations
are a subset of social innovations and social innovations are a subset of processes of social
change, respectively of societal modernisation (cf. GILLWALD 2000, 6). Social innovations are a
product of their time because only by considering contemporary societal beliefs of values and
perceptions of problems can the development and implementation of innovations be explained.
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Beyond that, existing values and perceptions of problems are always strongly connected to social
conditions of contemporary time. Last but not least the meeting of actors in certain
circumstances influence the development of innovations (cf. IBID. 2000, 24-25).
In summary, the development of care farming shows characteristics of a social innovation, as it is
a relatively new form of social action and it often fails to be positively honoured within society or
supported by powerful actors at the beginning. There is a growing movement within Europe
towards green care in terms of the number of farmers starting up a care farm, interested clients
willing to work at farms or receiving therapy at farms and an increasing number of researchers
working in this field scientifically. In some countries a diffusion of this new practice has already
started, for instance in the Netherlands. Still its potential is not yet noticed or widely accepted in
society.
Care farming can be understood as a social innovation , but in order to narrow down this quite
abstract term, a specification is made by using the term “new practice” that contains different
cognitive, normative, structural and material implications. According to R ECKWITZ (2003) a
precondition of a social practice is that there is a consensus about normative rules, meaning the
new practice of care farming must be brought into the focus of a care farmer and understood as
socially valuable. In practice theory the social is not an outcome of individual action but
individual action is based on social rules (cf. R ECKWITZ 2003, 287). A social practice meansbehavior routines realised by individuals who incorporate “practical knowledge, skills, know how
[…] [or in other words] practical understanding in the sense of `to be skilled at something`”
resumes Reckwitz (cf. IBID. 2003, 289). “If not norms or a system of symbols, not discourse or
communication and also not interaction but social practice is the smallest entity of the social than
someone has to search for the smallest entity of the social in a routinised “nexus of doings and
sayings” (SCHATZKI 1996) […] “ (cited in R ECKWITZ, 2003, 290). Practice theory emphasises the
corporeity; hence a social practice is a collective occurring skilful performance and a social
practice consisting of practiced movements and activities of bodies (cf. IBID. 2003, 290).
Furthermore, there is on the one hand “routinisation” of a practice, but on the other hand
“unpredictability” or “relative closeness” and “relative openness”. If a certain practice does not
prove itself, no matter for what reason, a modification of the practice is likely. This is how a new
practice can develop (cf. IBID, 2003, 294). In the present time farmers are forced to find new
income possibilities beside food production in order to maintain their business, meaning they
have to change their previous practice because the traditional form of farming does not stand the
test. Some farmers follow the idea of multifunctional farming, whereas the innovative practice of
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care farming is a part of it. If farmers offer care at their farm, they need to value this new practice
as positive and need to know how to practice it when implementing this innovation.
Nevertheless, it is significant for contemporary Western society that it values innovation as
positive. Consequently we are in danger of ignoring the fact that technical or social innovation or
new practices can have unintended side effects (cf. GROYS 1997, 18). It is important to note that
care farming is understood as an innovative practice but it is not assumed that it is the ideal or
solitary solution for social problems, especially rural problems. Hence, the term “innovation” is
used neutrally in this work. Besides the premise that care farming is an innovative practice, it is
assumed in this research that a social network perspective could shed new light on and enhance
our understanding of the development of care farming. Why it is assumed to be essential to focus
on social networks is explained in the next chapter.
2.5.2 Why is it essential to focus on networks at all?
Modernity means living in a world of plural choices, but only little help is provided to create
lifestyles opines GIDDENS (1991, 80), because “signposts established by tradition now are blank”
( IBID. 1991, 82). However people choose to live, it is a choice about who to be and describes self-
identity (cf. IBID. 1991, 81). Different to modernity, it is rather a characteristic of traditional
cultures that integration and orientation about how to act was given by traditional structures and
norms (cf. IBID. 1991, 81-82).
Differently to past times, “[d]isembedding mechanisms separate interaction from the
particularities of locales” in contemporary time (GIDDENS 1991, 20). Moreover, GIDDENS (1991)
argues that all forms of cultures had a sense of future, present and past and an awareness about
place. Daily life was highly linked to a certain place, which is not the case today when time and
space are separated (cf. GIDDENS 1991, 16). Human action is coordinated, but in modernity
physical contact is not necessary for that reason. Following C ASTELLS´ (1996) deliberations,
contemporary society is a “network society” in which information is seen as the key element of
social organisation and “why flows of messages and images between networks constitute the basic
thread of our social structure” (C ASTELLS 1996, 508). Social structure is transformed by
information networks because not political institutions but “the power of instrumental flows, and
cultural codes, embedded in networks” are the site of power in the information age (C ASTELLS
2000, 23).
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Consequently, if we live in a network society where no orientation is given by traditional
structures because of its resolution through individualisation, globalisation etc., it is presumed that
new networks must play an enabling role when new practices such as care farming develop. We
already know that innovation is a network effort and a product of societal processes. Moreover,
individuals (innovators) are never isolated, which is why human action has to be understood in its
context. Hence, innovative practice has to be examined from a structural and actor specific
perspective, namely from a qualitative network perspective. But even if non-traditional structures
determine the decision between plural choices, social relations undertake a lot of functions and do
influence farmers’ decision about if and how to adopt or to reject an innovation.
As argued by HOLLSTEIN (2001), social relations have a variety of functions that influence social
life because human beings are social beings. Social relations are meaningful, structure peoples´behavior and enable orientation; without social relations men and women would be socially and
emotionally isolated. They offer sociality and different forms of support to solve practical
problems (cf. HOLLSTEIN 2001, 19). Social relations are essential to maintain identity and
motivation as well as psychological stability or the development of thoughts and action (cf.
B ADURA 1981, 21). HOLLSTEIN (2001) distinguishes between the direct effect of social relations
and the buffer effect, whereby the latter means that social relations mitigate the burden of
stressful situations (cf. IBID. 2001, 26). Moreover, social relations influence self-esteem directly by
social recognition or social learning processes and produce the feeling of being backed up by
somebody, to name a view examples (cf. IBID. 2001 21-24).
In addition to that, within social networks resources can be produced that could facilitate actors
within the network with larger options for their action. In this respect the term “social capital” is
relevant, because different theorists believe that the relationship amongst actors social capital, or
in other words resources, could enhance the development and the later stabilisation of a new
practice. In this research it is assumed that especially the contact between care farmers could be
relevant in order to stabilise the new practice because they might be in a similar initial situation
and have to cope with similar problems and challenges. On the one hand the information
exchange between care farmers about experiences in terms of care farming could be very
important, and on the other hand other relevant resources can be produced within such a
network. We can say that being a member of a(n) (care farming) association could enhance the
consciousness about collective strength and collective identity, which could further enhance the
implementation of the new practice. Farmers could be motivated by social actors within a care
farmer network to continue developing this new practice, they could learn by mutual exchange of
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information about experiences in terms of care farming and could feel in good hands under the
burden of the highly unsecure and risky process of innovation.
To draw a conclusion, the development of care farming – understood as a new practice - is
assumed to be depending on social networks, because not traditional norms and structures but
new networks influence individuals’ decisions. It is assumed that the change of traditional duties
within the farming sector is connected to the influence of farmers’ social networks; or rather their
social relations influence the process of innovation causally. Furthermore, new practices demand
an infrastructure; they need to be cognitively, emotionally and technically embedded in order to
become stabilised.
Consequently, the leading question of this thesis is:
“How does farmers’ personal support network and social capital influence the innovation
process in the case of care farming?”
As a consequence of the leading question three theoretical strands need to be reviewed in more
detail, particularly different concepts within the theory of the process of innovation, the social
network theory and the social capital theory need to be characterised to provide the reader with
basic knowledge in order to understand the whole theoretical approach of this research. Hence, a
brief depiction about the theoretical concept that is applied in this work can be found at the end
of the illustration of each theoretical strand. Additionally, this theoretical review is necessary in
order to define the working hypothesis that leads this analysis. Therefore the following chapter
contains a depiction and discussion about innovation-, network- and social capital theory.
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3 THEORIES
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33..11 Theories of innovation
According to GILLWALD (2000), innovation research started about 100 years ago and wasconducted by scientists coming from a variety of different disciplines of social sciences (cf.
GILLWALD 2000, 1). The anthropologists K ROEBER (1923; 1931; 1944) and LINTEN (1936; 1940)
are known as the pioneers in innovation research who found out that the diffusion of technical
and social practices across cultures ( borrowing inventions ) are major factors for societal development
instead of similar practices in different societies ( parallels ) (cf. IBID. 2000, 33). Beside those
pioneers, SCHUMPETER (1928; 1993; 1939) developed the innovation theory to explain the
economic cycle, whereas the sociologist OGBURN (1923; 1957; 1957) described “social change” as
a permanent “cultural lag ”. Both can be called innovation researchers of early times, according to
GILLWALD (2000, 1).
SCHUMPETER (1947) defines innovations as “the doing of new things or the doing of things that
are already being done in a new way” (SCHUMPETER 1947, 151). BECHMANN AND GRUNWALD
(1998) define new as “in a break from tradition” (BECHMANN and GRUNWALD 1998, 5).
Innovation can be novelty as well as novation as it is always connected to the old but also
includes new aspects as a basic prerequisite (cf. IBID. 1998, 4).
Innovation can be understood predominantly as an individual (SCHUMPETER 1993; R OGERS
1983) or a collective ( VAN DE V EN, POLLEY et al. 1999) effort. V AN DE V EN (1988) for instance
defines innovation “as the development and implementation of new ideas by people who over
time engage in transactions with others within an institutional order” ( VAN DE V EN 1988, 103).
Moreover, in VAN DE V EN’S (1988) point of view “[i]nnovation […] is a network-effort (ibid.
1988, 115) […] a collective achievement” ( IBID. 1988, 105). Others, like MC GRATH (1985),
combine both views. The importance of the forces of an individual innovator is emphasised thenbut the idea that an innovation is a collective effort is also supported by a combination of both
views.
In addition to these directions in innovation theory, current entrepreneurship research shows that
the “demand-side perspective” is preferred compared to the “supply-side perspective”
(THORNTON 1999, 19). THORNTON (1999, 41) explains that the latter focuses on entrepreneur’s
features, whereas the demand–side perspective considers influencing factors from the
surrounding of a founder of new ventures. She recommends combining both by applying for
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instance, “[…] sociological frameworks, an embeddedness perspective […]” etc. (cf. IBID. 1999,
41). The terms innovation and entrepreneurship as well as the perspective on a collective or individual
leads to Schumpeter, whose research was fundamental for the sociology of innovation.
SCHUMPETER (1993) distinguishes between the “manager and capitalist” and the “inventor”
because different competencies are required. A manager/capitalist does not necessarily have to be
an inventor and vice versa. It is assumed that both are differing in “´behavior´ and ´type´” (cf.
SCHUMPETER 1993, 129). “The inventor produces ideas, the entrepreneur >gets the things done
<, which may but need not embody anything that is scientifically new” (SCHUMPETER 1991, 413).
Although innovation is attributed to an individual (inventor) who plays a major part, it is in his
point of view a “product of societal processes” (BRAUN-THÜRMANN 2005, 38). Economic and
sociological views are combined by Schumpeter’s theory; innovation processes are characterisedby “cycles” and “phases” (cf. BRAUN-THÜRMANN 2005, 39).
In earlier assumptions, innovation was seen as a linear process, but in later research it was rather
assumed as taking a non-linear course that can be recursive and disrupted (cf. BRAUN-
THÜRMANN 2005, 30). In my point of view Rogers, as a delegate of linear innovation models,
takes on an actor perspective and focuses on individual abilities of innovators. He adopts a
network perspective, only when he tries to explain the diffusion of innovation. It is central in
innovation research to describe the course of an innovation process. Delegates of the linearmodel describe ideal typical phases as described in following paragraph.
There are typically four phases in a linear model: the 1.) “discovery-“, 2.) “invention-“, 3.)
“development- and 4.) “diffusion” phase (BRAUN-THÜRMANN 2005, 36). The chronological
course and the premise of “distinct phases” are strongly criticised in current innovation research
because it contradicts reality (cf. IBID. 2005, 37). Asserted by M AIDIQUE and ZIRGER (1985)
innovation processes are similar to a “learning cycle model” by which failures and subsequent
learning process are often strongly related to the original innovation (cf. M AIDIQUE and ZIRGER
1985, 299). This implies that setbacks and recursive procedures play an important role within an
innovation process.
V AN DE V EN, POLLEY ET AL. (1999), being delegates of the non-linear model, emphasise the
unpredictability of the development of an innovation. This is caused by the complex interplay of
actors involved (cf. BRAUN-THÜRMANN 2005, 58). Contrary to Schumpeter and Rogers, van de
Ven, Polley et al. focus on social relations (cf. IBID. 2005, 59). This model allows focusing on the
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collective effort and assumes a non-linear very complex course of periods within an innovation
process.
According to VAN DE V EN, POLLEY ET AL. (1999) scientists studied the processes of innovation
among fourteen different technical and administrative innovations and found out that
innovations neither follow a simple linear course nor a clear sequence of stages or phases.
“Instead, a much messier and more complex progression of events was observed in the
development of each innovation.” ( VAN DE V EN, POLLEY et al. 1999, 23). However, VAN DE
V EN, POLLEY ET AL. (1999) explain that some commonalities were explored and that those
common elements were described as parts of periods or, in other words, an ideal-typical course
was depicted. Nevertheless, not all elements were observed in every estimated innovation process
and also the degree in which the process occurred was differing (cf. IBID. 1999, 23).
V AN DE V EN, POLLEY ET AL. (1999) describe three ideal-typical periods of the process of
innovation. Relevant preconditions develop for a long time before an innovation is developed
intentionally. Neither a single moment nor a single actor achieves the development of an
innovation. This “gestation” period, which can last many years, disembogues in the “initiation” of
the innovation (cf. VAN DE V EN, POLLEY et al. 1999, 25). “Shocks” are important to activate the
development of an innovation, even though there is no single reason for it (cf. IBID. 1999, 28).
Individuals interpret shock differently, but the awareness of the need or the opportunity of thedevelopment of an innovation and the dissatisfaction with present circumstances are often the
initiators of innovative behavior (cf. IBID. 1999, 30). V AN DE V EN, POLLEY ET AL. (1999) refer to
SCHROEDER ET AL. (1989) who opine that shocks can happen within an organisation or external
of it (cf. VAN DE V EN, POLLEY et al. 1999, 28).
According to VAN DE V EN, POLLEY ET AL. (1999) the “initiation period” starts from the gestation
process and ends at the time at which actors start to plan the budget and further steps for the
development of the innovation. At the stage of planning further steps, the transition to the
“developmental period” is marked (cf. VAN DE V EN, POLLEY et al. 1999, 30). The initiating idea
starts to unfold in many new ideas like a “firework” (cf. IBID. 1999, 34). Many different ways are
tested, setbacks happen and unexpected problems appear. A lot of new relationships are made
and it is a highly instable period for all members involved (cf. IBID. 1999, 34-53).
“The implementation period begins when activities are undertaken to apply and adopt an
innovation” ( VAN DE V EN, POLLEY et al. 1999, 53). Implementation is realised when new and old
practices are connected (cf. IBID. 1999, 53). This connection implies that the innovation process is
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terminated because it is finished. Beyond that, the innovation terminates if it is not possible to
link new and old practices or if resources run out and the innovation cannot be implemented (cf.
IBID. 1999, 54-58).
Recapitulating, innovation is understood as an individual or collective effort, whereby the
research focus is either on the skills of an individual or on the characteristics of the innovation
network. Contrary to former research, it is assumed that processes of innovation proceed in a
non-linear nature. Moreover, van de Ven assumes that innovation is a network effort, thus the
process is unpredictable because many actors are involved.
I have chosen to use the above explained innovation theory by van de Ven, Polley et al. because it
allows focusing on the collective effort within an innovation process and it enables a structuring
view on this societal phenomenon of the development of innovation. A further relevant reason
for applying this innovation theory is that it assumes innovation processes to be complex and
messy and not following a linear course. This perception contradicts reality less unlike the idea of
an innovation process taking a linear course. Nevertheless, commonalities or an ideal-typical
course occurred in the innovation processes of this sample from van de Ven, Polley et al. The end
of one and the beginning of another period within an innovation process is often not easy to
identify or delimitable in empirical studies. This disadvantageous fact does occur when applying
models containing phases, periods and steps. Nevertheless, the model enables to consider thecontext of the development of a new practice. Qualitative social methods with open questions
within data collection and interpretative techniques for data analysis allow considering a more
likely course of the process. Consequently, this will allow seeing relationships between periods as
being iterative but not rigidly sequential, providing a definition about how to make a distinction
between the different innovation periods, which is focal to this research.
In this work the initiation period contains the prehistory of each investigated case, motifs for care
farming and the initiating “shock” situation and disembogues in the developmental period as
soon as the farmer has made the decision to start up a care farm. The developmental period
contains actions that were realised to adopt care farming and ends when farmers offer care at the
farm to official clients. It is difficult to distinguish between the different periods, especially
between the developmental and implementation period because even if clients already visit the
farm, a lot of adoptions need to be made or education programs need to be followed, it is an
iterative course. In Austria it is generally a precondition to be educated or to adapt the farm
before you are allowed to offer care to clients, but in the Netherlands many farmers offer care attheir farm and they often adopt the farm posterior or alternatively be educated in terms of care
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farming in order to offer this supply. Nevertheless, in this work the implementation period begins
when official clients visit the farm and receive a form of care, hence if interviewees still offer care
to official clients and receive money for that at the time the interview was held, they are treated as
“adapted” projects and if they do not offer care at the farm anymore they are understood as
“terminated” projects.
Networks and communities of practice are seen as the typical social structure of modern society
to develop innovations (cf. BRAUN-THÜRMANN 2005, 93). C ALLON (1994) argues that innovation
is a successful connection of actors, which implies the importance of focusing on social networks
as the structure of an innovation (cf. C ALLON and BOWKER 1994, 407). In the following chapter
some selected network theories and how they intertwine are explained.
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33..22 Social network theory
According to S TEGBAUER (2008) “network research” (“Netzwerkforschung”) is a German term
whereas it is internationally known as “social network analysis”. The term includes both, a variety
of methods and theories with different perspectives on structures of relations. Social network
analysis is applied in a variety of different research fields, although these fields share a focus on
the importance of relation structures and use similar methods and theories (cf. S TEGBAUER 2008,
12-13).
The major feature of network research is that of not decontextualising social actors. In contrast toconventional variable sociology, single actors within a network are not understood as independent
from each other (cf. S TEGBAUER 2008, 11). An individual’s social relations to other individuals
and its embeddings within a social structure is central in social network analysis (cf. J ANSEN 2006,
18), rather than simply the individual itself. BURT (1980) depicts “[…] network models offer
powerful framework for describing social differentiation in terms of relational patterns among
actors in a system” (BURT 1980, 79).
SCOTT (2005) resumes “social network analysis emerged as a set of methods for the analysis of social structures, methods that specifically allow an investigation of the relational aspects of these
structures.” (SCOTT 2005, 38). In the meantime it has coincidentally become a statistical
instrument to analyse networks, although it is also a theoretical perspective.
3.2.1 Historical development of social network theory
It is assumed that the beginning of social network theory goes back to Georg Simmel who was
presumably a precursor in terms of social network analysis (cf. J ANSEN 2006, 37). SIMMEL (1992)
focused on forms of socialisation and emphasised it as the central subject matter of sociology.
SIMMEL (1890) also investigated the relevance of characteristics of social structure and its
influence on the effect and change of norms and on individualisation, states J ANSEN (2006, 37).
Ideas and concepts from socio-psychology and from socio-anthropology influenced the
development of social network analysis. The `gestalt` tradition in socio-psychology, associated
with the work of K ÖHLER
(1963), was a countermovement to the behaviouristic stimulusresponse models prevalent in those days for learning and behavior research. K ÖHLER (1963)
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“stresses the organised patterns through which thoughts and perceptions are structured. These
organised patterns are regarded as ´wholes´ or systems that have properties distinct from those of
their ´parts´ and which, furthermore, determine the nature of those parts.” (SCOTT 2005, 8).
According to J ANSEN (2006) this movement in psychology was followed by LEWIN (1936; 1951)
who established the field theory in social science and stresses that human action happens within
fields and is influenced by the living environment of actors. MORENO (1934; 1954) developed the
sociometry through which he was able to illustrate the influence of structural characteristics on
psychological well-being. Fundamental ideas were originated by C ARTWRIGHT and H ARARY
(1956) who developed the mathematical graph theory, which is still applied to illustrate social
structure. Leading figures in mathematical sociology were R APOPORT (1961) and COLEMAN
(1966) and in later research GRANOVETTER (1973) who investigated large instead of smallnetworks and focused on network structure and its influence on the diffusion of information,
innovation, diseases etc. (cf. J ANSEN 2006, 39-42).
An important countermovement at that time of prevailing structural functionalism was the work
of R ADCLIFFE-BROWN (1881-1955) and the “Manchester anthropologists” (SCOTT 2000, 26). In
their point of view human behavior is rather influenced by social relations than by social norms.
R ADCLIFFE-BROWN (1940) pioneered the term network because he said “I use the term “social
structure” to denote this network of actually existing relations” (quoted in SCHENK 1984, 3).
The development of social network analysis as an own discipline began with research from the
Harvard structuralists around Harrison White in the 70’s, the so-called “Harvard Breakthrough”
(SCOTT 2005, 33). W HITE (1976) emphasised the importance of social network analysis to
develop a theory of social structure. “The presently existing, largely categorical description of
social structure have no solid theoretical grounding; furthermore, network concepts may provide
the only way to construct a theory of social structure” (W HITE, BOORMAN et al. 1976, 732).
Granovetter, Wellman and Burt, renowned social network analysts, follow the perspective of a
moderate structuralism. It is aimed at integrating the micro and macro approach in their theories
to answer the question of the relationship between individuals and society, which is known in
sociology as the problem of social order.
GRANOVETTER (1985) deprecates the perspective of an atomised actor whose behavior is driven
by self-interest only. However, he also contradicts schools of thought that assume that behaviour
is determined by social structure solely; hence his theory is also opposed to models of structural
functionalism. He believes “that most behaviour is closely embedded in networks of interpersonal
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relations and that such an argument avoids the extremes of under- and over socialised views of
human action.” (GRANOVETTER 1985, 504). According to J ANSEN (2006) actors’ behavior is not
only driven by self-interest but also influenced by the current existing social context. This
network theoretical perspective also relativises the meaning of norms or subordinated
institutional arrangements like the market and hierarchy (cf. J ANSEN 2006, 20).
Besides Granovetter, Barry Wellman, a prominent social network analyst of the contemporary
time, also follows a middle course between micro and macro approaches. W ELLMANS´ (1988)
theoretical perspective follows a moderate structuralism and can be seen as distinct to P ARSONS
(1976), who developed a normative oriented action theory. The paradigm of structural analysis by
W ELLMAN (1988) considers structures and agents when explaining social action and is described
by five basic premises:
Behavior is interpreted in terms of structural constraints on activity, rather than in terms of innerforces within units (e.g., “socialisation to norms”) that impel behavior in a voluntaristic, sometimesteleological, push toward a desired goal.
Analyses focus on the relations between units, instead of trying to sort units into categories definedby the inner attributes […] of these units.
A central consideration is how the patterned relationships among multiple alters jointly affectnetwork members´ behavior. Hence, it is not assumed that network members engage only inmultiple duets with separate alters.
Structure is treated as a network of networks that may or may not be partitioned into discretegroups. It is not assumed a priori that tightly bounded groups are, intrinsically, the building blocksof the structure.
Analytic methods deal directly with the patterned, relational nature of social structure in order tosupplement – and sometimes supplant – mainstream statistical methods that demand independentunits of analysis. (W ELLMAN 1988, 20)
Instead of norms and values, this approach gives priority to the structural constraints influencing
behaviour; hence relations between actors are in the centre of his theory. In contrast to Wellman,
the actor him/herself seems to be more influential on behaviour in Burt’s theoretical approach.
The American Sociologist Ronald BURT (1982) answered the micro/macro problem by
developing a structural action theory by which he integrates structure/system and actor/action in
one model, resumes J ANSEN (2006, 15). BURT (1982) assumes both, that interests and resources
of actors are dependant on the position within a social structure and that actors influence social
structure by their behavior.
According to J ANSEN (2006) the theoretical perspective of social network analysis asserts thesignificance of networks or the embeddings of individual or corporative actors for their options
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of action. Network analysis is an instrument to connect actor- and action theories with theories of
institutions, structures and systems. Social network analysis helps to integrate macro and micro
approaches in social science (cf. J ANSEN 2006, 11). Social network analysis is strongly associated
with (moderate) structuralism, but in the meantime social network approaches get combined with
other theoretical approaches. Therefore relational characteristics are considered beside cultural,
cognitive and normative variables, (cf. J ANSEN 2006, 24). A central theoretical construct of social
network analysis is the social capital theory (see 3.3). Moreover, network analysis is an instrument
to capture social resources or social capital (cf. J ANSEN 2006, 26). In this work the social capital
theory is combined with the network approach rather than a moderate structuralism perspective,
which is why the social capital theory is explained in more detail (see 3.3). Before discussing
different theoretical approaches of social capital, the concepts of social network analysis that are
of relevance for this work are explained in the next chapter.
3.2.2 Relevant concepts of social network analysis
According to BÖGENHOLD and M ARSCHALL (2008), research results produced by applying social
network analysis are not independently interpretable from the terminology of a network theory.
Terms like structure, clique, strong and weak ties , for instance, are clearly defined concepts of social
network analysis and in fact, research results are communicable only by using this theoretical
language of social network analysis. In contrast to that, if for example regression analysis is
applied, it is not necessary to use the terminology of this method to present research results. In
no circumstances would we assume that regression analysis is a sociological theory (cf.
BÖGENHOLD and M ARSCHALL 2008, 396).
Before defining the term network, I explain the terms actor and relation because they are a
prerequisite to understand the following explanations. It is argued by W ASSERMANN and F AUST
(1994) that “[ a]ctors are discrete individual, corporate, or collective social units” (W ASSERMAN andF AUST 1994, 17). This implies a range of different social entities, such as a small group and their
members, but also nations within the world system (cf. IBID. 1994, 17). Relation means that ties are
collected which have a certain characteristic in common, for instance the characteristic of being a
member of a sub-working team within an organisation. Relations can range from people within a
small group, to members of larger associations and citizens of nations (cf. W ASSERMAN and
F AUST 1994, 20). HOLLSTEIN (2001) refers to DEIMER /J AUFMANN (1984) and classifies informal
social relations, which in the majority of cases means primary contacts to family members,
friends, neighbours etc., i.e. all contacts that have a personal character. Secondary contacts are
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more formal contacts, for example to the teacher, the doctor etc. (cf. HOLLSTEIN 2001, 45).
Formal and informal is a pair concept to distinguish between aspects of social organisation,
different types of social relations and social groups. They are formal if planned and organised and
informal if connections develop spontaneously and unplanned (cf. FUCHS-HEINRITZ,
R AMMSTEDT et al. 1995, 209).
After the definition of actors and relations , it is possible to define the term network, which is a
virtual term; the researcher and his/her research interests define who is part of the network. A
network is formally a “specific amount of relations between actors” (MITCHELL 1969, 2), or as
J ANSEN (2006) emphasises, a network is a well-defined set of edges. Knots are actors within a
network and edges are their relations to each other. Clearly, knots mean actors, such as
individuals, enterprises, ministries and also objects like estates etc. Edges are relations realised by communication, the transaction of material or by practical and emotional support etc. The same
actors can build different networks because networks are relational (cf. J ANSEN 2006, 58); the
same people can build a network of friendship and a network of work.
3.2.2.1 The positional versus the relational approach
Generally, the subject matter in network analysis is the structure of relations and it is argued that
“[s]tructures emerge trough patterns of existing and missing relations (J ANSEN 2006, 72).
Structure is not the “sum of individual patterns”, but relations between actors, while the position
of actors within a network specify the characteristic of the network’s structure (cf. J ANSEN 2000,
36). In this respect, based on the analytical direction , social network analysis can be relational or
positional. BURT (1980) depicts that relational and positional approaches investigate networks of
relations, while focussing on the relations from different perspectives. As you can see in the table
below, BURT (1980) differentiates between different units of analysis: a single actor, multiple
actors as a network subgroup and multiple actors as a structured system and compares it withexisting analytical approaches (cf. BURT 1980, 80).
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Actor aggregation in a unit of analysis Analytical Approaches
Multiple actors/
Actor Multiple actors as subgroups as aa network subgroup structured system
Relational personal network primary group as a system structure as
as extensive, dense network clique: a set dense and/orand/or multiplex of actors connected transitive
by cohesive relations
Positional occupant of a status/role-set as a system structure as anetwork position as network position: a set stratification of
central and/or of structurally equiva- status/role-setsprestigious lent actors
Table 2: Concepts of network structure within each six modes of network analysis" (Burt 1980, 80).
In a “relational” approach, network models describe the intensity of relationship between pairs of actors. Network models within a “positional” approach describe the pattern of relations defining anactor’s position in a system of actors. The relational approach fosters models in which an actor’sinvolvement in one or a few relations can be described without attending to his many otherrelations. The positional approach fosters models in which an actor is one of many in a system of interconnected actors such that all defined relations in which he is involved must be considered.(BURT 1980, 80).
Depending on the purpose of the research, either the positional or the relational network
approach offers optimal models. Shortly explained, the positional approach enables to measure
the prestige or “centrality” of actors within a network (cf. BURT 1980, 131). Or, to put it another
way, an actor is central within a network of friendship if he or she has most friends, which means
having the highest degree of connections within that certain network. A high degree of centrality
means for example possessing power, due to obtaining information from many different
informants.
Moreover, the positional approach enables one to identify cliques within a network, or, as
indicated by BURT (1980) “jointly occupied network position[s]” can be discovered (BURT 1980,
131). Finally, subgroups can be depicted in respect to rules and positions and “in terms of which
actors are differentiated” ( IBID. 1980, 132). This is made possible by applying “density tables and
blockmodels” ( IBID. 1980, 132). To illustrate this idea, DE NOOY MRVAR et al. (2005) chose the
example of instructors at a university who are tutoring the same students. Those occupying the
role of a tutor have contact to each other and to the students but the students do not necessarily
have contact to each other. This means, all students are in the same position in regard to the
supervisor, although they are not a “cohesive subgroup”. External ties to other positions and
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internal ties within a position are considered by applying density tables and blockmodels and
become visible in this matrix (cf. DE NOOY , MRVAR et al. 2005, 265).
The relational approach is appropriate if the investigator wants to call attention to consequences,
the type and amount of (dis-)integration of actors within their social environment (cf. J ANSEN
2006, 65). BURT (1980) points out that the advantages of using (quantitative) ego-network models
in a relational approach are firstly the possibility of collecting network data by applying ordinary
survey research designs and random sampling. This means that “inferences […] about typical
relations in large populations” can be made, because the investigated network is anchored on
specific actors. In addition, personal network models allow to distinguish between separate
contents of relations or, in other words, to consider multiplexity (see 3.2.2.3) (cf. BURT 1980, 131).
The personal network is a special form of social network analysis and is explained here because it
can be investigated from a relational perspective only. The personal network does not consider
the position of the actor within a network because “sets of ego-alter relationships” (BEGGS,
H AINES et al. 1996, 309) are investigated and defined “from the standpoint of a focal individual”
(W ELLMAN 1992, 6), which means defined by ego. BURT (1980) refers to MITCHELL (1969, 12-15)
by summarising “[s]ince relations in a system are only considered when they are present for a
specific actor as ego, models of these relations describe an ego-network anchored on a single
actor.” (BURT 1980, 89). In this respect the term network is misdirecting, emphasises HOLLSTEIN
(2003) because such network models are not a network in the proper sense. She recommends
following B ARNES (1969) using the term “first order star” instead (cf. HOLLSTEIN 2003, 170).
Various authors use the term “ego-network” (e.g. BURT (1980)) but it has to be mentioned that
these network models are also discussed as “primary stars, primary zones, first-order zones and
personal networks”; the latter being the most popular term states BURT (1980, 89), which is why
it is used in this work. J ANSEN (2006) argues that alters are generally not being interviewed,
whereas relations mentioned by ego are direct but in this situation basic and analysed as symmetric
relations (cf. J ANSEN 2006, 82).
The unit of analysis can differ in network research from a single actor to multiple actors.
Moreover, it can be distinguished between the relational and positional approach. Burt (1980)
encapsulates
[…][i]f the purpose is to describe social differentiation in terms of the typical relations in whichactors are involved, then the relational approach offers optimal models of ego-networks and the
triad census. If the purpose is to describe actors or subgroups in terms of the overall structure of social differentiation, then the positional approach offers optimal models based on the socialtopology of a system. (BURT 1980, 130 - 131)
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Finally, when exploring the size of a network or the frequency of contact within a network, the
focus is on the formal structure, not on the content of relations. This is the reason why those
concepts are often combined with concepts that consider contentual aspects (cf. HOLLSTEIN
2006, 14).
3.2.2.2 Qualitative versus quantitative social network analysis
A typical association with network research is the application of high standardised techniques and
formal structures being investigated, such as structural holes, cohesive subgroups etc. (cf.
HOLLSTEIN 2006, 12). But in contemporary research a new approach has emerged, namely the
qualitative network analysis. Philosophically speaking, both the qualitative and quantitative
network analysis, can be combined with the relational or positional approach on all levels of units(aggregations). Practically, it is not possible to investigate large networks by applying a qualitative
network approach because of monetary and temporal resources.
Burt (1980, 80) refers to the quantitative network approach only, which indicates that the
distinction between qualitative and quantitative network analysis is new. In quantitative or
structure oriented network analysis, relations of units and not the units themselves are central (cf.
W ELLMAN 1988, 20). This means in practice that quantitative research methods are applied for
data collection (e.g. questionnaires) and analysis (e.g. blockmodels) to focus either on the formal
structure and content of relations or to investigate the characteristics of network structure, such
as the centrality of actors.
In contrast to that, the “qualitative network analysis” (HOLLSTEIN 2006, 12) focuses on both: the
meaning behind an action and on underlying structures (cf. HOLLSTEIN 2006, 11). Hence, an
interpretation of actors, subjective perceptions and how networks developed or are maintained, is
investigated. It considers the principles of network and qualitative research.
Qualitative social research approaches imply a smaller number of cases but it allows looking behind
the scene. Representatives of the interpretative paradigm understand social reality as constructed
(cf. HOLLSTEIN 2006, 16), like “[i]f men define situations as real, they are real in their
consequences” (THOMAS 1970 , 572). HOLLSTEIN (2006) argues that social reality is arranged
according to meaning and refers to a context or a frame of reference of this meaning. Social
reality is also perspectival and depends on a certain point of view. Since it is negotiated, it is
always dynamic and processual (cf. HOLLSTEIN 2006, 16). Understanding the meaning behind an
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action, the subjective perception of actors and their action leading orientation can be mentioned
as a crucial indicator of qualitative research (cf. IBID. 2006, 17).
Nevertheless, “[q]ualitative research [is] a continuous process of constructing versions of reality”
emphasises FLICK (2009, 19). He resumes that the point in time when the interview was given
influences the version presented by the interviewee. One has to consider that the date might have
been inconvenient or a certain experience that is in the centre of interest was too long ago. Would
the same story have been told differently at another time? In addition, the interviewer as a person
influences how the interviewee presents the version. Last but not least, the interpretation of the
researcher and of the reader “produce[s] a new version of the whole” (cf. FLICK 2009, 19).
However, there is a long tradition of using qualitative methods in social science because it also
offers a lot of advantages (cf. IBID. 2009, 17). The qualitative design is suitable for particularresearch topics, especially for “undeveloped, marginal and new phenomena” (HOPF 1993, 18).
The advantages of combining qualitative techniques with social network analysis, which is
understood as qualitative network analysis , are manifold. A specific of this sociological network
concept is that of analysing social processes by considering the interdependency of action and
structure (cf. W EYER 2000, 13). Furthermore, little is known about the dynamic of networks and
it is expected that this aspect can be explored seminally by applying the qualitative network
analysis (cf. HOLLSTEIN 2006, 21 - 22). Qualitative network analysis in practice means applying data collection techniques similar to the quantitative approach but combining it with qualitative
social research methods, for instance the “problem-centred” or “narrative interview” (W ITZEL
1982, 47 and 89). In addition to that, interpretative methods for data analysis need to be applied,
hence the “interpretative paradigm” (W ILSON 1973, 58-62) is followed by applying a qualitative
design because it allows a “methodically controlled understanding of the other”
(“Fremdverstehen”) (SCHÜTZE, MEINEFELD et al. 1973, 433-495).
In the qualitative personal network approach, social relations of an individual (“ego”) are investigated
by applying “name generators” and “name interpreters” (cf. J ANSEN 2006, 80). As a consequence
of the research question, the name generator is developed, with particular relations are collected.
Ego is asked to mention those alters who supported him/her practically, for instance in the
developmental period of the care farming project. According to HOLLSTEIN (2006), in the
qualitative personal network the “role relation” and “exchange network approach” can be
distinguished. A role relation approach focuses on actors and their role relation; therefore the
following question: Who is part of the network? Further on, the exchange network approach
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focuses on the content of a network and asks for the effort contributed by an actor occupying a
certain role (“Rollenträger”)(cf. HOLLSTEIN 2006, 15).
The purpose of this research is to understand and explain the process of innovation by
considering the relevance of care farmer’s (ego’s) social relations. Therefore, a qualitative personal
network approach is applied, which implies a relational research focus (see above). In most cases
both the role relation and exchange network approach are likewise combined in this research
because both approaches are of relevance. My focus is on actors: Who is involved in the
innovation process? What is transferred by farmers’ personal support network?
In social network analysis it can be distinguished between the relational and positional approach
on one hand and the quantitative and qualitative approach on the other hand. The most
frequently applied approach is the combination of the positional and quantitative social network
analysis. Recently the positional and relational approaches are often combined with the qualitative
social network analysis. Nevertheless, the four concepts are independent from each other and can
be variously combined, with one exception. The consideration of the position is not possible by
applying the personal network approach because of its definition from the standpoint of a focal
individual. In this work the qualitative personal network approach is applied and a relational
research focus is realised.
3.2.2.3 Content, intensity and form of social relations
Recapitulating, a qualitative and personal network approach is applied in this work, which makes
a positional analysis impossible but allows considering the relational aspect of one’s (farmer’s)
personal network. In concrete terms relations can be distinguished with regard to firstly their
content, secondly their intensity and thirdly their form (cf. J ANSEN 2006, 59).
Through the focus on the content of a relation, the sociological research focus is put into thecentre of analysis. Generally, the content of a relation can be various and relations are often
multifunctional (cf. HOLLSTEIN 2001, 32). J ANSEN (2006) classifies the content of a relation into
“transaction” (purchase, present), “communication” (norms, information), “border crossing
relations” (membership of one person in two boards), “instrumental relations”, “emotional
relations” (friendship), “power relations” and “relations between relatives” (cf. J ANSEN 2006, 59).
Moreover, via social relations different forms of support can be transferred, which means support
is the content of the relation.
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Several types of social support are documented in literature and summarised by HOLLSTEIN (2001)
as practical help, information related-, emotional-, motivational- and esteem support, but also
social companionship, consensual or value-related solidarity. As it is shown in the table below,
those forms of social support do not need to be solely positive (cf. HOLLSTEIN 2001, 32-34).
Form of support Examples Other terms
Practical help services tangible
material support aid
Information advice cognitive guidance
related support information orientation help
Emotional support love expressive support
affection close support
welfare socioemotional support
empathy psychological support
Esteem support respect appraisal
recognition belongingness
acknowledgement belonging
appreciation interrelational functionality
diffuse support
Social companionship social activities
produce feeling of belonging or backing
sociality
Motivational support sympathy
encouragement
Consensual or value- consensus in terms of norms and values
related solidarity
Negative support emotional burden
dependency
anger
worries
grief
money
time
Table 3: Content related efforts of social relations. An overview of different types of social support (cf.
Hollstein, 2001, 32-34).
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Nevertheless, even if support is provided, the “individual orientation” could cause a care farmer
to not use the support for developing the innovative project. HOLLSTEIN (2003) emphasises that
the “individual orientation” will affect the benefit from existing social relations. Firstly,
sometimes different personal interests are conflicting and cannot be realised in the same time, the
individual is challenged to rank them. Even if enough support for developing a care farm is
offered, the personal ranking can prevent the realisation of the innovation. Secondly, the
“individual perception” and “interpretation schemes” can be the reason for not utilising existing
support networks. For example someone with a high ability of abstraction can feel close to a
person, even if that person lives at the other side of the continent. The effort of that social
relation can be used, whereas others with less ability of abstraction might not profit (emotionally
etc.) from knowing that person. Finally, it is mentioned that “milieu or culture specific
orientations” could influence the benefit of existing social relations, for instance some discuss
very personal problems only with their husband or wife but not with friends or neighbours etc.
(cf. HOLLSTEIN 2003, 159). Nevertheless, a qualitative research approach allows considering one’s
individual orientation and how this affects the further development of the innovation.
Moreover, one relation can undertake different roles or contents, which is the so-called
“multiplexity ” (J ANSEN 2006, 80). On the one hand scientists focus on a “role multiplexity”, which
means that two nodes are connected more than once by occupying more than one role, for
instance they are bound together as the boss and employee, as friends, as members of the same
bowling club etc. (cf. BEGGS, H AINES et al. 1996, 309). This role understanding is different to
MERTONS (1957, 110-111) “role-set” because role multiplexity is understood as occupying more
than one role in relation to the same person whereas Merton means that one person generally
occupies many roles in a different context, for instance being a teacher for pupils, a father for a
child and bowling partner with a bowling colleague. On the other hand, BEGGS (1996) argues,
multiplexity is understood as a “content multiplexity” when two nodes are tight together because
friendship, emotional support, instrumental support etc. is transferred (cf. BEGGS, H AINES et al.
1996, 309).
The intensity of a relation is defined through the frequency of use or its importance for an
individual. Social relations can be either strong, meaning they have a comprehensive history of
interactions and are part of a dense cohesive social structure or they are weak because they do not
have a substantial history of interactions and become activated only occasionally (cf. R IEMER
2005, 82). A relation between actors exists only if they know each other (cf. VAN DIJK 1997, 6),
with simple acquaintances where only one interaction exists are defined as the weakest form of
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ties (cf. R IEMER 2005, 132). Literature offers different criteria to define strong ties and according
to R IEMER (2005, 132) depending on the context of the research, different criteria are relevant.
GRANOVETTER (1973) distinguishes between “strong” and “weak ties”, hence indicators of “the
amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding), and the reciprocal
services […] characterise the tie” (GRANOVETTER 1973, 1361). Furthermore, some scientists
opine that the mulitplexity of a relation is used as an indication for a strong tie (cf. K APFERER
1969, 231), whereas others argue it not an indicator. Therefore strong ties can be multiplex,
although not all are considered to be (cf. SIMMEL 1950, 29-317). GRANOVETTER (1973) argues
that most people are able to define if a tie is weak, strong or absent on an intuitive basis (cf.
GRANOVETTER 1973, 1361). Burt (1997), for instance, measures the strength of relations in terms
of intimacy, activity and personal discussion (with whom the interviewee discusses personal
matters or socialises) versus corporate authority (formal/informal) (cf. BURT 1997, 370-371). In
contrast to that, K RACKHARDT (1992) defines strong ties as “Philos” ties which are characterised
through regular interactions, through an affective component (mutual interest, sympathy) and a
history of interactions with each other that enable the production of a common context (cf.
K RACKHARDT 1992, 218f).
In this work Krackhardt’s definition is applied because it addresses relevant criteria of this
research. The regularity of interactions, mutual interest and the history of interactions will be
considered in order to define ties as weak or strong. As an indicator for mutual interest, the
realisation of common tasks within the care farming groups is used in this work. Moreover, the
history of interactions and frequency of meetings is considered in order to define ties as weak or
strong. Only strong ties within a group allow the development of group solidarity, group identity,
trust etc. (see 3.3.3).
The form of a relation indicates its direction. If an actor supports someone it is a directional
relation while a meeting of two actors is understood as an undirected relation (cf. J ANSEN 2006,
59). This aspect plays only a supplementary role as only the directional relation is of interest, in
light of farmers’ support network.
In this study the content of farmers’ social relations, or more precisely, farmers’ support network
is investigated. Moreover, it is considered which forms of support are transferred via social
relations while implementing a new practice (care farming). This means in this work there is a
distinction between formal and informal relations but also between individuals and larger units,
such as organisations that support the implementation of care farming. An additional destinctionis made in terms of the content of a relation. Practical help, information, or emotional support,
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for instance, could be needed to start up the care farm; subsequently farmers personal support
network is the core of this research. Moreover, there is a focus on the concept of strong or weak
ties because they undertake different tasks in terms of an innovation (see 3.3.3) and lead directly
to the concept of social capital, which is explained more in detail in the following chapter.
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33..33 Social capital theory
3.3.1 Different perspectives on social capital by Bourdieu,
Coleman, Burt and Putnam
The concept of social capital is diversely interpreted and is applicable for a variety of research
questions. Given the variety of different focusses on the micro-, meso- or macro-level, the
concept is widely used in social sciences (cf. DETH 2003, 88). This chapter contains a discussion
of interpretations and possible applications of the concept for analysing innovative practice.
J ANSEN (2000) illustrates that social capital is understood as an aspect of social structure that
facilitates larger options for human action, for instance entrepreneurial benefit. Social capital
constitutes the “correlation between structures and actions of individuals within a network”
(J ANSEN 2000, 37) or is the hinge between actors and structures.
Following J ANSEN (2000), social capital is produced unconsciously as a side effect of other
actions and, different to human or economic capital, it is not hold solely by one social actor but
dependent on direct or indirect relations to others within a network. Social capital is a
characteristic of individuals and collectives; hence an investigation is possible from both points of
view. It can either be investigated on a group level, accordingly the collective benefit of social
capital is considered, or from the viewpoint of its private benefit (cf. J ANSEN 2000, 37).
Bourdieu, Coleman, Burt and Putnam influenced the scientific discussion in terms of social
capital fundamentally. Consequently those theorists and their diverse definitions of social capital
are explained more in detail in further paragraphs.
BOURDIEU (1999 ) opines that “social energy” is produced by acquiring capital that comprises
possibilities of action for a certain individual (cf. BOURDIEU 1999 , 194). He distinguishes
between “economical capital” (material properties exchangeable with money), “cultural capital”
(e.g. books, work of art, academic titles) and “social capital” (cf. BOURDIEU 2005, 52-53). Social
capital is understood as social relations that define the membership to a certain group.
Information, advice etc. can be exchanged and all relations (e.g. friendship, business relationship
etc.) are maintained only if people invest time and (in)direct money (cf. FUCHS-HEINRITZ and
K ÖNIG 2005, 161 - 168). Bourdieu’s work emphasises the private benefit of social capital (cf. JUNGBAUER -G ANS 2006, 18) and it is thematised as a resource, argues H AUG (1997, 4). “Social
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capital is the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by
virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual
acquaintance and recognition” (BOURDIEU 2005, 49).
BOURDIEU argues (2005) that to reproduce social capital, a constant interchange by which mutual
recognition is confirmed is essential. While the reproduction depends on the before invested
“Beziehungsarbeit” (BOURDIEU 2005, 67), meaning the investment for maintaining the social
relationship, the amount of one’s own social capital is firstly defined by social relations that can
be mobilised by a certain actor. Secondly, it depends on the capital (economic, cultural, symbolic)
belonging to those social actors with whom the mobilised relation exists (cf. IBID. 2005, 64). The
higher the amount of capital of an individual, the more the person can improve his/her personal
position or reproduce inequality. All forms of capital can be achieved via economical capital by investing transaction costs; for instance, social capital can be converted into economic or cultural
capital by the investment of more or less costs (cf. IBID. 2005, 70-75). Compared to Bourdieu,
James Coleman adopts a functional perspective in terms of social capital.
COLEMAN (1987; 1988; 1990) adapted the definition of social capital from LOURY (1977) and
focuses on its function. He distinguishes between human and social capital, which are interacting
and influencing each other. Human capital is presentable as a knot within a network structure of a
number of individuals, whereas social capital is positioned within the relations between theindividuals (cf. COLEMAN 1990, 304; COLEMAN 1991, 395).
Social capital is defined by its function. It is not a single entity, but a variety of different entitieshaving two characteristics in common: They all consist of some aspect of a social structure, andthey facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure. Like other forms of capital,social capital is productive, making possible the achievement of certain ends that would not beattainable in its absence. (COLEMAN 1990, 302)
The quote above explains that social capital is an aspect of social structure and that it facilitates
action. H AUG (1997) depicts that its function results from the worth of resources that emerge outof the social structure of actors and contribute to the realisation of interests (cf. H AUG 1997, 3).
Three forms of social capital were identified by COLEMAN (1988), namely “obligations and
expectations, which depend on trustworthiness of the social environment, information-flow
capability of the social structure, and norms accompanied by sanctions.” (COLEMAN 1988, 119).
Obligations and expectations , meaning trust, depend on the reliability of the social environment but
also on the amount of obligations.
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This means if person A does something for person B and trusts B to reciprocate in the future, thisestablishes an expectation in A and an obligation on the part of B. This obligation can be conceivedas a credit slip held by A for performance by B. (COLEMAN 1988, 102).
The amount of obligation can differ, states COLEMAN (1988, 102; 1990, 307; 1991, 398), because
social structures can vary, for instance, in terms of a person’s need for help, the existence of resources and the availability of helpers (cf. H AUG 1997, 3). The potential of information - inherent in
social relations – is another form of social capital, as well as norms and effective sanctions . Social
capital in form of norms and effective sanctions can facilitate or prohibit action (cf. C OLEMAN
1988, 104-105).
Its public good aspect differentiates social capital from other forms of capital (cf. COLEMAN
1988, 119). H AUG (1997) depicts that if the right to control action is transferred to one person,
social capital can be accumulated. At the same time problems in terms of public goods can be
solved by transferring the right to control action to powerful actors. Thus, by solving public good
problems (e.g. the Free Rider Problem), social capital of a community can be increased. And last
but not least, voluntary associations and purposeful associations founded for other purposes can
appropriate social capital, hence social capital is mainly created as a by-product of other activities
(cf. H AUG 1997, 3-4).
Summarising, Coleman starts from a rational choice approach, but his intention is to consider the
context of action by implementing aspects of social structure by using the term social capital (cf.
H AUG 1997, 1). His perspective on social capital is a functional one, whereas Burt in contrast
focuses on the structural aspect.
BURT focuses on the structural aspect when defining social capital, which is different to financial
and human capital, not the property of individuals but jointly owned by connected parties.
Therefore no party can use social capital without another party.
Social capital: relationships with other players. […] Social capital […] is owned jointly by the partiesto a relationship. […] Social capital concerns the rate of return on the market production equation.[…] Social capital is the final arbiter of competitive success. (BURT 1992, 48-49)
BURT (1992) mainly focuses on the utilisation of social capital and advantages thereof, including
information and control due to a certain position (structural hole) within the network (cf. BURT
1992, 13). Burt refined the theory of the “strength of weak ties” (GRANOVETTER 1973) were it is
asserted that weak ties provide new information, because those actors with whom we are weakly
connected are moving in different circles and obtain different information (cf. GRANOVETTER
1973, 1371). BURT (1995) emphasises that in addition to the weakness of the tie, the position of
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an actor is of relevance. Only those weak ties that are occupying a “structural hole” can transfer
new information. He called the actor who is occupying a structural hole the “laughing third” or
“tertius gaudens” as it is in an autonomous position and has information from two networks that
are only connected because of him- or herself. The laughing third is able to benefit, for instance,
from entrepreneurial advantages by “brokering relationships between other players” (cf. BURT
1995, 47-48).
The already discussed definitions and interpretations of social capital emphasise the importance
of being embedded within a network or social structure to gain social capital. They focus on the
utilisation of social capital for individuals, whereas PUTNAM (1995) considers its collective
benefit. He refers to the importance of interconnectedness (e.g. membership in voluntary
associations) to generate trust and to increase the sanctioning effect of norms within a society inhis popular work “Bowling alone. America’s Declining Social Capital” (PUTNAM 1995). He
defines social capital as
[…] features of social life – networks, norms, and trust – that enable participants to act togethermore effectively to pursue shared objectives. […] Social capital in short, refers to social connectionsand the attendant norms and trust. (PUTNAM 1995, 664-665)
The focus is on the effect of social capital and not on its conditions of emergence. Social capital
characteristically increases by use (cf. H AUG 1997, 5-6). The higher the amount of social capital
within a society, the more coordination and cooperation develops (cf. PUTNAM 1995, 69).
3.3.2 Comparison of the different perspectives on social
capital
Similarities are found in terms of the origin of social capital - it develops within networks.
Bourdieu argues that it depends on the membership to a group, Coleman calls it the relationship
between parties, Putnam defines it as the interconnection within societies, and it depends on the
position of actors, when following Burt’s interpretation. Comparing the different perspectives on
the concept of social capital, the theories of Bourdieu, Coleman and Burt have in common that
they define it as a resource facilitating individual action that cannot be used independently from
those with whom the actor is connected. In contrast to that, Putnam focuses on the level of trust
of a society and this total amount of social capital is seen as a resource of the community to solve
public good problems (cf. H AUG 1997, 9). This already shows that it can be distinguished
between an external social capital definition that relates to actors’ social relations to other actors,
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and an internal perspective that focuses on the interconnection within a social system (cf. R IEMER
2005, 87).
Besides, two dimensions can be perceived in social capital research, namely the structure related
dimension and the content related dimension. On the one hand it is opined that especially dense
or cohesive networks produce social capital (Putnam, Coleman, Bourdieu), on the other hand
theorists believe that the contrary is true, meaning incomplete networks enable actors to obtain
social capital if they occupy a certain position (“structural hole”) (BURT 1992) within the network.
Burt’s interpretation is quite useful for comparing the amount of social capital between successful
and unsuccessful - regardless of how success is defined – innovators, but it demands a positional
research approach. He opines that actors who are occupying a specific position command more
or less information that can be used for one’s own entrepreneurial advantages. In contrast toBourdieu, who explains social reproduction by applying the concept of social capital, Coleman
stresses the functional perspective and emphasises the mutual influence of human and social
capital. COLEMAN (1990) emphasises that social capital can be produced within a dense network
that is characterised by “social closure” (J ANSEN 2002, 95-96) and therefore focuses on the
content related elements of social capital. Also Putnam stresses the importance of
interconnection to increase trust and the efficiency of norms within a society and in this respect,
to decrease costs. Both, the structural and content related dimension of social capital can be seen
as complementary because if a group obtains new information external to the group, it can only
profit from it if the group density is high and effective collaboration is possible (cf. R IEMER 2005,
111).
3.3.3 Forms of social capital and its importance for
innovations
Accomplishments of social capital are “family- and group solidarity […] [,] trust in the validity of
universal social norms[,] information[,] odds of profit through structural autonomy [and] social
influence” (J ANSEN 2000, 37-38). There is a strong relationship between social capital and the
strength or weakness of ties, moreover strong and weak ties take on different tasks regarding to
the development of an innovation (cf. W EYER 2000, 21-22). Group solidarity and trust appear
from strong ties, which are the basis for social influence and refer to the collective character of
social capital (cf. J ANSEN 2000, 38). Strong ties can also lead to social closure as each individual
can hold only a few strong ties because they bound resources, for instance emotional or temporal
resources. Weak ties are an essential basis for the processes of individualisation, modernisation,
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innovation and diffusion because they are less redundant and transfer new norms and
information over large distances and allow innovative practice this way (cf. W EYER 2000, 22;
J ANSEN 2000, 39-40). R AMMERT and BECHMANN (1997), ELZEN, ENSERINK et al. (1996) and
K OWOL (1998) argue the opposite; they found out that close collaboration allows innovation
because every actor within the innovation network can concentrate on his or her competence (cf.
quoted in W EYER 2000, 22). W EYER (2000) does not see these results as contradictory because as
soon as organisations cooperate, they open their network and allow the flow of information (cf.
IBID. 2000, 22). J ANSEN (2000) depicts that those actors who occupy a structural hole are
structurally autonym (the laughing third), for instance, and social influence increases with the
degree of connection with powerful actors. Moreover, strong ties only shape collective identity,
decrease transaction costs and enable social learning despite of unsecure situations, such as
innovation processes (cf. J ANSEN 2000, 40-42). LESSER opines that “[w]ithin these social
relationships, there are three primary dimensions that influence the development of the above
summarised mutual benefits: the structure of the relationships, the interpersonal dynamics that
exist within the structure, and the common context and language held by individuals in the
structure” (LESSER 2000, 4). The three dimensions are elements of social capital and are
characteristics of social structure enabling social interaction between actors within the social
structure (cf. N AHAPIET and GHOSHAL; cf. R IEMER 2005, 129).
In this work the focus is on the function of social capital, following the idea that it is a resource
that facilitates individual action that is not useable independently from those with whom the actor
is connected. If farmers are affiliated in care farmer groups (unions or organisations) they are
varyingly strongly connected with each other, consequently different resources are obtainable
within this network. Once farmers are strongly connected, resources such as group solidarity and
group identity can be developed and information-flow capability within the group can increase.
Therefore these content related elements of social capital can be interpreted as implicit resources
(cf. R IEMER 2005, 128). To put the focus on the function of social capital but also to follow the
idea that it is a resource that facilitates individual action, the theoretical perspective of Coleman is
most appropriate and is therefore applied in this research.
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3.3.4 Operationalisation of social capital at a group level
To define the amount of social capital within a group of care farmers, three forms of social capital
are considered here, namely intra-group communication, group-identity and group-solidarity. The
indicators that are used in order to measure the amount of social capital are already partly
described in literature to be an indicator for certain forms of social capital, for instance, role-
multiplexity is depicted by J ANSEN (2000) to be an indicator for group solidarity. If the indicator
is used according to a former author it is quoted below, otherwise the author assumes it to be
important and to be suitable in order to measure the certain form of social capital. Nevertheless,
all indicators and their characteristics are based on empirical findings in terms of differences and
commonalities between the investigated care farmer groups. For instance, differences infrequency of meetings is used as an indicator for intra-group communication, meaning the author
observed that there are those care farmer groups who have no meetings, no continuing meetings
or continuing meetings 4, 5 or 6 times a year. The number of meetings was used as possible
characteristic of the indicator.
Another example of an indicator for intra-group communication is the direction of information-
flow within a group of care farmers, as it is assumed that the possibility to communicate with
each other is influenced by the organisation of these meetings. In other words, the possible
amount of intra-group communication is influenced if the core theme of the meetings is a lecture
and the discussion between participants (the care farmers) is playing only a secondary role or if
the contrary is true. In this respect the characteristic of observing rather than exchanging
information pertains if a lecture is the core theme of the meeting and not the discussion between
care farmers.
As you can see the characteristics of each indicator are thematically oriented on the topic of care
farming and are based on empirical findings in terms of differences between the care farmer
groups. Analysing interviews from care farming experts and members of the care farmer groups
generates the evidence that a certain characteristic accords to a certain group of care farmers. The
organisation structure of the care farmer union was only indirectly considered in the interviews
and information about how the group is organised, which tasks are fulfilled together, what topics
are discussed and how often and where they meet in general etc. is not mentioned by all members
of the groups or by all care farming experts. General statements and information about the
organisation of the group are used as a part of the puzzle in order to define the groups’ social
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capital. The criteria used in order to prove the empirical evidence of a certain characteristic are
depicted more in detail in chapter 8.5.
Why intra-group communication, group identity and group solidarity are perceived to be relevant
forms of social capital regarding to care farming and the relevant indicators and characteristics are
depicted below.
Intra-group communication: In order to implement a new practice, farmers need to use new
information channels to reach relevant information, thus a lot of simple acquaintances have to be
activated and new contacts must be established. Regular meetings between care farmers are
opportunities to pick up a range of relevant information in order to implement care farming, but
also enable orientation about one’s personal situation. People dealing with the same topic might
share similar experiences but they might cope differently with problems and can exchange
information about that, hence they influence each other in their behaviour this way. Moreover,
members of the group are partly affiliated with the same network but each member of the group
can also have contact to other circles and obtain different knowledge that can be transferred to
the group. In this respect, intra-group communication is a relevant form of social capital for this
research and is operationalised in terms of the direction of an information flow, which sets the
agenda of the personal meetings, the frequency and place of personal meetings and content of
communication during these meetings, as you can see in following table.
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Intra-group communicationIndicators Characteristicsdirection of no information flow
information-flow rather observe than exchange informationexchange information
who sets the agenda? head of organisationthe group of farmers themselves
place of meetings no meetings
direct meetings not at care farmsdirect meetings at care farms
frequency of no meetings
meetings meetings but no continuing meetingscontinuing meetings 4 times a year
continuing meetings 5 times a yearcontinuing meetings 6 times a year
content of how someone starts up the care farmcommunication problems and challenges perceived
how someone copes with problems and challengeshow someone adapts the farm
future aims of the groupdisease patterns and how to deal with clients
Table 4: Indicators and characteristics in terms of intra-group communication.
The direction of the information flow addresses the aspect of how the group and their meetings
are organised and if care farmers observe information, for instance, through presentations from
outsiders about care farming relevant topics or rather exchange information between each other.
Additionally, it is relevant what care farmers communicate with each other during these meetings
and if farmers themselves or outsiders set the agenda. The more topics in terms of care farming
(dealing with clients, adopting the farm, problems and challenges perceived and dealt with) are
discussed within a care farmer group, the more orientation about one’s own situation is provided,
but also the more care farmers can learn from each other and can influence each other’sbehaviour. The more frequently meetings are held, the more opportunities there are to provide
each other with relevant information. Further information can be provided if the place of
meetings is taken into account because it makes a difference if care farmers meet at their care
farms instead of functional rooms off the farm. Therefore visual and verbal information about
how the farm can be adapted etc. can be transferred this way.
Group identity: Identification describes the process through which actors learn to put oneself in
somebody’s shoes. For instance the identification with gender roles means to incur a male or
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female perception, which is presented by the social environment, and to understand certain
characteristics of behaviour as part of this gender role. Group identity is defined as understanding
oneself as a part of a collective. According to LEWICKI AND BUNKER (1996, 123) and N AHAPIET
AND GHOSHAL (1998, 256) “[p]eople may in fact empathise strongly with the other and
incorporate parts of his or her psyche into their own “identity” (needs, preferences, thoughts, and
behaviour patterns) as a collective identity develops.” (quoted in R IEMER 2005, 143). R IEMER
(2005, 143) opines that the strongest form of trust, which is trust based on identification between
actors within a collective, can lead to identification on a group level and disembogue in a
common group identity. LEWICKI AND BUNKER (1996, 123) mention that [i]ncreased
identification enables one to “think like” the other, “feel like” the other, and “respond” like the
other” and this influences mutual understanding in a positive way, motivates actors to cooperate
with each other in order to realise group interests (cf. R IEMER 2005, 143) and is used here
because of the assumption that it could be important in order to stabilise a care farming project.
Group identity understood as a resource and as social capital is operationalised in terms of
homogeneity of the group, the group’s history of interactions, common aims and the existence of
a common homepage.
Group identityIndicators Characteristics
homogeneity members of the group do not have the same client group
members of the group have partly the same client group
members of the group have the same client group
members of the group do not offer the same care tasks to clients
members of the group offer the same care tasks to clients
there are differences within the group in terms of 24hours care or day care
there is homogeneity within the group in terms of 24 hours care or day care
history of interactions 0 years
5 years
7 years
10 years
group members attended the same education course not in the same time
goup members atttended the same education course in the same time
common aims the group of farmers has common future aims
the group of farmers do not have common future aims
common homepage no
yes
Table 5: Indicators and characteristics of group identity.
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Homogeneity addresses the question if farmers implement a similar form of care farming, if they
have to deal with the same client group and if they offer the same care tasks during the day or for
24 hours. It is assumed that besides the amount of time spent with each other, homogeneity also
increases by understanding each other’s needs; hence homogeneity increases group identity.
Group identity is also increased by a long history of interactions, which takes into account the
period of time the group already exists and if members of the group also attended education
courses together. Attending the same education course does not only enlarge the history of
interaction but also provides farmers with a common (professional) language that increases
mutual knowledge and composes the necessary common context in the communication that
serves a reference for a precise and unmistakeable formulation of communication and therefore
enables the solution of complex problems (cf. CRAMTON 2001, 347). In this work a further simple
indicator for group identity is if the group presents itself as a group to outsiders in form of a
common homepage and if the group of care farmers has common aims. The two forms of social
capital group identity and group solidarity are closely connected but the first can exist without the
second, whereas group identity is a prerequisite for the latter.
Group solidarity: Group solidarity allows to help each other and to advocate for common aims and
duties on one’s own accord. It means to invest time and energy not only to implement one’s own
care farming project but also that of colleagues. Group solidarity also offers a lot of advantages
because compared to a single care farmer a group has a different status when negotiating with
public authorities or convincing care institutions to cooperate etc., therefore it seems to be an
important form of social capital in order to stabilise a care farming project. Hence, this is the
third form of social capital that is operationalised in order to define the degree of a group’s social
capital. The following table represents applied indicators and characteristics in order to define a
care farmer union’s amount of group solidarity.
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Group solidarityIndicators Characteristicsrole- multiplexity no member of a care farming union or organisation
member of the same care farming union or organisationno member of the same region
member of the same regionno member of the union for general farmerssome of the group are a member of the union for general farmers
all members of the group are a member of the union for general farmersgroup members did not attend the same care farming education course
some of the group attended the same education courseall members of the group attended the same education course
network- density not a member of a groupmembers of the group know each other partly all members of the group know each other
group-supportinformation-supply in terms of how to start up a care farmpublic relationsnetworking with relevant organizations (care industry, public authority ...)
negotiating with relevant organizations (care industry, public authority...)adapting quality standards
Table 6: Indicators and characteristics of group solidarity.
According to J ANSEN (2000), the network density and role-multiplexity (see 3.2.2.3) are indicators
for group solidarity and are applied in this work. A network’s density results as a quotient from
the number of possible and realised social relationships [n* (n-1)] (cf. J ANSEN 2000, 46-47). In
this work it is relevant to categorise those who are a member of a care farming group and those
who are not, and in the case where the first applies it is distinguished between members of the
care farming group that know each other partly or all of them knowing each other. A more
complex indicator for the potential of group solidarity is the role-multiplexity where care
farming’s relevant redundancies of relations are measured. If the care farmers share different roles
because they are not only a member of the same care farming organisation but also a member of
the union for general farmers and/or of the same education course for care farming and/orcitizens of the same region, the role-multiplexity but also the probability that group solidarity
develops increases. In addition to the above-mentioned two indicators for group solidarity, a third
one is considered, namely the support a group provides for each member. There were five
different tasks observed within the data of this sample, whereby farmers stand together. Farmers
support each other with relevant information about how to start up a care farm, do public
relations together, and the group networks with relevant organisations, for instance, with
potential cooperation partners from the care sector. It is believed that such a group should
negotiate togther with a public authority in order to establish new rules for care farming and
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adapt already existing quality guidelines. The more often they stand together in terms of different
duties, the higher the amount of group solidarity.
How the investigated care farmer unions are organised and why their group social capital in terms
of intra-group communication, group identity and group solidarity is ranked to be low or high is
highlighted by the case profiles, where organisation structure, the group tasks etc. are described in
detail (see 5.6 and 8.5).
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33..44 Connection of theoretical strands and
working hypotheses This chapter aims to explain why it is meaningful to apply certain aspects of the innovation-,
network- and social capital theory in order to understand the process of innovation and influence
of social networks and social capital. Hence, it illustrates how the different theoretical strands are
connected to each other and lists four working hypothesis and underlying research questions as a
consequence of the review of the earlier mentioned theories.
A. Theory of the process of innovation:
The innovation theory by VAN DE V EN ET AL. (1999) is applied in this research because it
considers the content of an innovation process. It follows the idea that innovations are a network
effort and not developed by one single individual but by individuals who are affiliated within a
social network and who reach forms of support to implement the innovation because they are
socially embedded. In contrast to innovation theories that are based on the idea that innovations
are an individual effort, the approach by van the Ven et al. (1999) allows the combination of
innovation and network concepts, hence it regards the course of an innovation but also considers
care farmer’s (innovator’s) social relations that transfer support in order to develop care farming.
The ideal-typical course, described as the initiation-, developmental- and implementation periods
with certain relevant characteristics within the periods, is applied in this research, on the one hand
to focus on the course of an innovation, and on the other hand to enable findings in terms of
support needed in certain periods of the innovation. More precisely, characteristics such as a
previous history that is relevant for the later development of an innovative practice, motives and
shocks; the latter are generally initiating the innovation. As a special characteristic of the
developmental period, VAN DE V EN ET AL. (1999) points out the aspect of setbacks that occur
and that especially in this period a lot of new contacts are necessary in order to develop the new
practice. In this work the innovation process is separated into the initiation period, which
contains a prehistory, motives and initiating shocks and disembogues into the developmental
period as soon as farmers decide to start a care farm. The developmental period lasts as long as
farmers do not offer care to official clients. As soon as they offer care at their farm for clients the
developmental period leads into the implementation period and projects are understood as
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adopted, when interviewees offer care in the time when the interview was given, and as
terminated if they already stopped offering care at their farm when the interview was given.
Working Hypothesis 1: The process of innovation involves different periods in which different
forms of support and functions of social capital are important in order to stabilise the new
practice.
Research Dimensions & Research Questions in terms of innovation theory:
• What does the prehistory of care farmers during the initiation period look like and are
there similarities or differences across the cases?
• What motivates care farmers in the initiation period to start the new practice of care
farming?• What and who initiates this new practice of care farming?
• Which form of support and functions of farmers’ social capital are important in the
initiation period in order to enhance the further development of the new practice?
• Which challenges and problems arise during the developmental period and which
similarities or differences across the cases can be observed?
• Do farmers have to invest in contacting a number of actors during the developmental
period and are there differences or similarities across the cases?• Which form of support and functions of farmers’ social capital are important in the
developmental period in order to stabilise the new practice?
• Which form of support and functions of farmers’ social capital are important in the
implementation period in order to stabilise and diffuse the new practice?
• How and why do care farmers terminate the innovation?
• Are there differences across the cases in terms of the different periods of innovation in
which forms of support and functions of social relations are important in order tostabilise care farming?
B. Social Network Theory
Moreover, a qualitative personal network approach is applied in this study, meaning the network
is developed and the course of the innovation is explained by the care farmer her/himself. The
qualitative approach enables to understand their needs when developing the new practice. The
personal network approach does not allow a positional but a relational perspective whereas on theone hand a role relation approach is applied by focusing on who is part of the support network.
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On the other hand an exchange network approach is applied in order to consider the content of
farmers support network. As already stated in chapter 3.2 (network theories) it can be
distinguished between different forms of support namely, practical-, information-related-,
emotional-, esteem-support, social-companionship, motivational-support, consensual- or value
related solidarity, but also negative support. Those different forms of support are considered by
analysing the content of farmers personal support network because at this point it is not known
which forms of support are needed in certain innovation periods in order to implement the new
practice. In this respect data collection will be realised by applying rather open questions such as
“Who was important in order to cope with problems and challenges?” or “Which form of
support was needed in a certain period of the innovation?” instead of clear defined name-
generators and –interpreters which would ask much more concrete: “Who supported you
practically?” or “Which form of support was provided by your husband?”. In addition to that, the
relational network approach can unveil the relation’s density, which means if strong or weak ties
are relevant in different periods of the innovation. The density of a relation is closely linked to the
social capital- and innovation theory because strong and weak ties undertake different functions
in terms of an innovation but also allow the production of different resources because of
interconnection (see below). Recapitulating, a relation between actors only exists if they at least
know each other (cf. VAN DIJK 1997, 6) and the weakest form of ties are simple acquaintances
with at least one prior interaction. Adapted from K RACKHARDT'S (1992, 218f) definition, strong and weak ties are categorised by following the criteria of the regularity of interactions and the
history of interactions in this work. So if a care farmer is supported by his family members who
also live at the farm, it is understood as support transferred by strong ties. In contrast to that,
weak ties are considered to be the transfer of relevant information in terms of care farming
between a care farmer and an actor, that only meet occasionally.
Working hypothesis 2: The form of support that is obtained through care farmer’s personal
support network influences the process of innovation.
Research Dimensions & Research Questions in terms of network theory:
• Which form of support do care farmers obtain and how does this influence the process of
innovation?
• Who is part of care farmer’s personal support network and how does this influence the
process of innovation? During which periods of the innovation are weak or strong ties
observed to be important?
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C. Social capital theory
To put the focus on the function of social capital but also to follow the idea that it is a resource
that facilitates individual action, the functional perspective of Coleman is considered similar and is
therefore applied in this research. On the one hand COLEMAN’S (1988) perception of socialcapital is applied because his functional understanding of social capital agrees with the idea of
investigating the content of a relation, thus it helps to understand how important different
functions of farmers social capital are in order to implement care farming. These functions of
social capital are understood as a resource that provides advantages such as solidarity or
information etc. that might enable farmers to implement care farming easier. COLEMAN assumes
that “obligations and expectations, which depend on trustworthiness of the social environment,
information-flow capability of the social structure, and norms accompanied by sanctions.”
(COLEMAN 1988, 119) develop because of a strong interconnection between actors and those that
are functions of social capital. But according to Jansen, strong ties also shape collective identity,
group-solidarity, decrease transaction costs and enable social learning despite of unsecure
situations, such as innovation processes (cf. J ANSEN 2000, 40-42). In this work Coleman’s
functional perspective on social capital will be applied in order to understand the importance of
forms of social capital for the stabilisation of this new practice of care farming, but only three
forms of social capital, namely intra-group communication, group-identity and group-solidarity,
are applied here for the following reasons. The concept of social capital refers only to the group
of care farmers that interviewees are affiliated with, because it is assumed that a strong
interconnection between care farmers enhances the stabilisation of the new practice. Farmers can
better exchange their knowledge, experiences, concerns etc. in terms of care farming, and intra-
group communication allows orientation about ones own situation but also allows to learn from
each other or to help each other if questions and problems appear. Additionally, it is assumed that
group-identity within a care farmer group influences the process of innovation positively because
it allows actors not only to develop similar needs, preferences, thoughts, and behaviour patterns,but also to better cooperate with each other and to realise interests of the group. Group identity
with the result of a feeling of belonging to a group can support farmers to implement care
farming and to manage difficulties and hurdles that occur during the innovation process. Finally,
it is assumed that group solidarity between care farmers plays an important role for the
stabilisation of the new practice because it advocates common aims and allows people to help
each other if someone in the group experiences problems etc. (Operationalisation of social capital
see chapter 3.3.)
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Working Hypothesis 3: The higher the amount of social capital of a group that care farmers are
affiliated with, the better they are able to cope with problems and challenges during the process
of innovation and to stabilise the new practice.
Research Dimensions & Research Question in terms of social capital theory:
• How does the amount of intra-group communication within the group that care farmers
are affiliated with influence the innovation process?
• How does the amount of group identity within the group that care farmers are affiliated
with influence the innovation process?
• How does the amount of group solidarity within the group that care farmers are affiliated
with influence the innovation process?
D. Integrating Social Capital and Network theory
From the methodological point of view, both the relational network approach and the functional
perspective on social capital, allow focusing on the content of a relation within a farmers support
network. If we focus on the content of a relation, some concepts seem to overlap. Information
related support from network theory and intra-group communication from social capital theory
seem to consider the same aspects at first sight, but there are relevant differences.
The first only considers the form of support, namely information related support such as advice
or orientation independent from a network’s density. The second also implies that only strong ties
can provide a good intra-group communication and also considers how care farmers
communicate with each other. Combining both theoretical approaches allows considering if
different forms of information can be obtained in groups of care farmers who are more or less
strongly interconnected with each other. Moreover, the function of group solidarity and group
identity are not considered in network theory but these forms of social capital can be seen asadditional forms of support or resources in order to implement the innovation, and explains why
it is meaningful to combine both theoretical perspectives.
Integrating Working Hypothesis 4:
The more that important forms of support are provided by farmer’s personal support network
and the higher the amount of social capital of the group of care farmers they are affiliated with,
the more likely the new practice is stabilised.
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In addition to the focus on farmers’ personal social networks and the influence of the social
capital of a group they are affiliated with, a comparison at a national level in terms of care farming
allows a further insight into the development of this new practice, especially when the selected
cases have different national conditions and are in different developmental stages as is the case
with Austria and the Netherlands. The following chapter contains a short description of
differences in both countries in respect to geography, political culture, agriculture and care
farming that provides the reader with relevant context information. The differences in political
culture then lead to further assumptions or to a further working hypothesis.
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4 METHODS AND
TECHNIQUES
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44..11 Case selection
4.1.1 Expert interviews
A “purposeful sampling” strategy was applied to find “information rich cases” for this study (cf.
QUINN P ATTON 2002, 230). To realise the expert interview, “snowball or chain sampling” was
predominantly applied in both countries. It started with care farming scientists who were asked:
“Who knows a lot about – whom should I talk to” (cf. QUINN P ATTON 2002, 237). In each
expert interview the same question was asked to find the most important experts in respect to a
specific issue, like education in care farming or regional support organisations in the Netherlands
etc. In this research an expert is defined as someone who has profound knowledge about care
farming, owing to a work-related responsibilty in that field (cf. FLICK 2007, 215).
There is a larger number of “experts” in the Netherlands, which is why the number of
interviewed experts is higher than in Austria. Altogether, a number of twelve interviews in the
Netherlands and seven interviews in Austria were realised. Dutch representative(s) of (the)
• Ministry for Agriculture and Food Security,
• Ministry for Health, Welfare and Sport,
• care organisations that collaborate with care farms,
• regional support organisations in Amsterdam and Utrecht,
• national agricultural lobby (LTO),
• former national support centre ( Steunpunt Landbouw and Zorg ),
• club Omslag (a group of farmers representing the anthroposophical style of carefarming),
• scientific groups
• and of self-employed care farm advisers were interviewed.
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Furthermore, Austrian representatives of the following groups or organisations were interviewed:
•
care organisations that collaborate with care farms
• care Farms run by a social organisation
• Education Centre for Agricultural Pedagogic and Garden Therapy
• Education and Research Centre for Animal Therapy with Farm Animals (ÖKL)
• Research Centre for Green Care (Federal Institute for Less Favoured and Mountainous Areas)
•
health institution offering garden therapy
In total, nineteen experts were interviewed to reach a high understanding of the national
circumstances and for additional interpretation of the interviews conducted with care farmers.
4.1.2 Interviews with care farmers
In addition to the selection of relevant experts, it was necessary to apply a different strategy to
find information rich care farming projects. To reach that aim, cases were selected after
heterogeneity according to the central thesis of this research: Networks matter . First of all, it was of
central interest to focus on three relevant criteria, namely projects diverging in terms of national
conditions, Austrian and Dutch care farming projects were investigated, a different amount of
social capital within care farming groups and the fact if care farming was adopted or terminated
when the interview was given. In accordance with QUINN P ATTON (2002) the purpose of the
“maximum variation sampling strategy” is to find out common patterns that occur (cf. QUINN
P ATTON 2002, 235). This signifies that in the current research the aim is to trace emerging
patterns in respect to the importance of social networks in specific periods of innovation. Hence,
further requirements for case selection were:
Interviewees of this research needed to work on a “real” farm and to be farmers themselves or at
least the partner of a farmer. The consequence of this requirement was an investigation of mainly
family enterprises. The following example should clarify the case selection: The “City Farm” in
Lower Austria was excluded because social workers fulfil farmers’ tasks but a professional farmer
is not involved in the project. Only care farms practiced by a professional farmer to reach
additional or principal income on his or her farm were selected.
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The interview had to be arranged with the person who felt most responsible for the care farming
part.
The number of selected cases in Austria according to their location is: Vorarlberg 1, Carinthia 2,
Upper Austria 9, Styria 2, Lower Austria 3 and Burgenland 1. The table below illustrates selected
cases of adopted and terminated care farming projects in Austria and the Netherlands in respect
to their membership to a care farmer union or association.
Austria The Netherlands
group of group of independent member of member of independent
AAT Perg Landzijde VUZB
adopted 5 4 5 7 6 1terminated 0 2 2 3 2 0total number 5 6 7 10 8 1
Table 7: Selected cases of care farming projects in Austria and the Netherlands.
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44..22 Data collection - Techniques applied
To make sure the meaning behind an action can be understood, it is important to apply open
techniques for data collection and interpretative methods for analysis (cf. HOLLSTEIN 2006, 18).
In this research different methods are combined, namely the narrative, guideline-based and expert
interview, a network diagram and a short questionnaire. Furthermore, by applying these different
methods different forms of “triangulation” (more in detail cf. FLICK 2005, 309-318) are realised.
The table below illustrates an overview about data collection and data analysis techniques that are
applied in this study.
Care Farming Interviews Expert Interviews
Data collection Combination of narrative and Problem-centred interview problem-centred interview
Network diagram
Short questionnaire
Interview protocoll
Data analysis Thematic coding Thematic coding
Table 8: Methods and techniques chosen for data collection and analysis.
4.2.1 The expert interview
Different to other forms of interviews, FLICK (2007) states, the focus of an expert interview is
not on the interviewee as a “person but as an expert for a specific field of action”. Usually,“employees of an organisation with a specific function and professional knowledge” are
interviewed (cf. FLICK 2007, 214-215). Predominantly, expert interviews are guideline-based
because of time pressure (cf. LIEBOLD and TRINCZEK 2002, 33) and have the advantage that the
interviewer can avoid to present himself as incompetent in the specific field. The risk that the
expert gets off the point is minimal and the comparability between the cases increases by applying
the guideline (cf. MEUSER and N AGEL 2002, 77).
Following BOGNER and MENZ (2002), different forms of expert interviews can be mentioned.First of all, the “explorative expert interview” helps to broaden general knowledge about the
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research field and can be applied to generate data collection instruments. A “systematising expert
interview” can be applied beside other data collection techniques to generate context information.
The third type is a “theory generating” interview, which is applied with the aim of generating a
theory out of the expert interviews (cf. BOGNER and MENZ 2002, 36-38).
Altogether a number of nineteen expert interviews were realised, whereas four national and
international care farming experts were interviewed to explore the research field, in order to reach
a broader understanding of care farming in general. Parts of the four explorative interviews and
further fifteen interviews with experts (see 4.1.1) were used to generate context information to
better interpret the care farming interviews and the personal network diagrams, which means that
the explorative and systematising expert interview was applied.
Expert interviews were partly analysed in order to understand the organisation of certain care
farmer groups and to find evidence for a certain characteristic of an indicator for the amount of
intra-group communication, group identity and group solidarity. Subsequently it was possible to
follow the operationalisation guidelines (see 0) and to distinguish between the groups, in regard to
their respective amounts of group social capital (see 5.6 and 8.5). Moreover, these interviews were
used in order to comprehend the development of care farming in each country that is considered
in order to increase the knowledge about the samples’ context (see 5.5.) Compared to the care
farmer interviews, the expert interviews play a supplementary role and are of secondary importance in this research - that realises a “between-method triangulation” (FLICK 2009, 444).
4.2.2 The narrative interview
When analysing (innovation) processes retrospectively, one has to be aware that the stories told
by the interviewees are constructions of the past. The construction is bound to an individual
perspective and is therefore selective, depending on the interviewee’s memory as well as their
reinterpretation.
However, to counteract these disadvantageous aspects of a retrospective research, SCHÜTZE
(1983) developed the “narrative interview” that allows a closer look at reality by generating three
forms of constraints to the narration. According to SPÖHRING (1995), the constraint to specify
(„Detaillierungszwang“) demands an explanation of motives and coherences. Secondly, the
constraint to condense („Kondensierungszwang“) forces the interviewee to set up a focal point
within the story, while the constraint to round out the cognitive figures (“Gestalterschließung”)means the story has to be completed. The first question of the interview should encourage the
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interviewee to narrate in a non-directive way, whereby the constraints mentioned above should
become effective (cf. SPÖHRING 1995, 168-169).
Generally, the interviewer does not interrupt this first phase of the narrative interview. However,
he/she is allowed to ask further questions after the narration is finished to get a broader
understanding of unclear parts of the story. This interview technique is preferably used to obtain
biographical information and subjective statements about occurrences (cf. DIECKMANN 2001,
449).
In the present investigation the first question was “Please start to explain: How come you started
a care farm and who was important for that?” The period of narration took from a few minutes
to up to twenty or thirty minutes depending on the “narrative competence” (D IECKMANN 2001,
542) of the interviewee. The interviewer did not interrupt in this phase but was allowed to make
notes and to support the continuation of the narration if necessary. At the end of this first
narration the prepared interview guideline was followed, whereas questions already answered in
the course of the narration were not asked again.
4.2.3 The problem-centred interview
The “problem-centred interview” (W ITZEL 1982, 89) is more structured than the narrative and
[…] characterized by three central criteria: problem centering (i.e., the researcher’s orientation to arelevant social problem); object orientation (i.e., that methods are developed or modified with respectto an object of research); and finally process orientation in the research process and in theunderstanding of the object of research. (FLICK 2009, 162).
According to Flick (2009) this form of an interview originally contains an interview guide, a
postscript and a short questionnaire. The interview guide comprises questions to focus on the
problem-centred interest, whereas it is the interviewer’s task to decide when to pose those
questions (cf. FLICK 2009, 162). In principle, during the narration phase the interviewer plays an
active role and is allowed to ask questions without interfering the logic course of the story (cf.
FLICK 2007, 214).
Besides other auxiliary functions, the short questionnaire contains questions that would disturb
the narrative string during the oral interview (cf. W ITZEL 1982, 90), for instance questions about
age, education, civil status etc. The function of the postscript or interview protocol, argues
W ITZEL (1982), contains relevant context information, which means
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[…] one’s own intuitions, ancillaries, doubts, conjectures, estimations of situations, observations of particular framework conditions of the interview and of non-verbal elements influencing thecontext and course of the conversation […] which would not adequately or not at all becomeexpressed through the interview transcript. (W ITZEL 1982, 91-92).
The postscript can provide important data and enhance the understanding of single parts of the
interview (cf. IBID. 1982, 92).
In the present research, the beginning of the interview was dominated by elements of the
narrative, followed by elements of a guideline-based interview (problem-centred interview). The
problem-centred interest was who (family, friends, neighbours, associations and agricultural
lobbies etc.) was involved in the innovation process, which means a role relation approach was
followed.
Additionally, the exchange network approach was considered by focusing on who contributed a
specific effort, such as support in economical questions or emotional support etc. Generally, a
specific function is given (e.g. whom do you ask for advice?) but in this study a very open
procedure was followed, as it was not known which forms of support were important for
farmers. Farmers were only asked to mention “who was important and why?” The importance
and form of support was considered and interpreted in the analysis phase. This part of the
interview often ended up quickly and was considered in detail when filling in the network diagram
(see 4.2.4) at the end of the oral interview.
Questions about the personal awareness of one’s own identity, social influence and autonomy
addressed the theoretical concept of social capital directly. But similar to forms of support and its
importance for farmers, the aspect of social capital became apparent when analysing the case as a
whole.
Generally, farmers explained the course of the innovation in the first narration phase. The
guideline considered the applied innovation theory with its ideal-typical periods and inherentcharacteristics (motifs and triggers for starting up the care farm, setbacks and challenges) but as
open questions and interpretative methods for data analysis were applied, the visibility of
variations from the ideal-typical course was ascertained.
Additonally, this approach enabled the research to focus on the perceived acceptance of a
particular project and to incorporate aspects of the applied theories, for instance the social capital
theory. The first was considered by social recognition, which was prompted with questions like
“How was the reaction of your family, friends, neighbours, other farmers in the region,
cooperation partners etc. when you started up a care farm?”
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Moreover, enterprise (care farm)-related questions (size and type of farm, number and type of
clients) as well as social demographical questions, for example interviewee’s age and education
were asked using a short questionnaire. Particularities of the interview situation and non-recorded
conversations were documented by a post interview protocol.
A “within method triangulation” (FLICK 2009, 444) was realised by combining the narrative and
problem-centred interview. The combination of these techniques minimises the problems of a
retrospective research, as elements of a narrative interview are applied. Secondly, the attached
guideline offers a specific level of standardisation that enables a comparison between the cases
and a consideration of the applied theory. It proved to be helpful if interviewees did not have a
high “narrative competence” (cf. DIECKMANN 2007, 542).
4.2.4 Network diagram
The two-dimensional network diagram (Netzwerkkarte) and network-drawing
(Netzwerkzeichnung) is an illustration of ego’s social relations and visualises for instance the
affiliation to cliques and sub-networks or the relation to single actors in terms of closeness and
distance. Generally, the illustration is combined with oral interviews to gather information about
the context of the visualised social relations.
The network drawing (2006, 319) allows the interviewee to freely draw the relevance of her/his
social relations to persons regarding to the research interest. In contrast to that, the network
diagram offers concentric circles and the core circle illustrates the interviewee her-/himself or, in
other words, the “focal individuals are at the centres of their own egocentric networks”
(W ELLMAN 1992, 6). K AHN AND ANTONUCCI (1980) developed a network diagram (see Figure 1)
to visualise ego’s important emotional network. H ÄUSSLING (2006) for instance applied the
network-diagram to find out who (persons, databases, information centres, institutions) is more
or less important for the interviewee to accomplish daily tasks and to reach information about the
concern and for occupational advancement (cf. H ÄUSSLING 2006, 145).
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Figure 1: The emotional network by Kahn and Antonucci, 1980 (Source: simulated illustration).
In this research the interviewee was asked to fill in the higher standardised network diagram (see
Figure 2), which was adapted from K AHN and ANTONUCCI (1980). Using the network diagram,
interviewees were asked to define the importance of specific social relations by positioning the
names of more or less important people or organisations on different places within the network
diagram. In practice, interviewees were asked to write the names of very important social actors
for implementing the innovation in the second, important social actors in the third and less
important but relevant people in the fourth circle of the network diagram.
Furthermore, the network diagram (see Figure 2) is divided into three parts which illustrate VAN
DE V EN´S (1999) periods of innovation. The interviewer started with an anchor question like
“Think about the time before you started up your care farm”. Interviewees were then asked to
write the names of very important, important and less important people or organisations on the
brown part of the network diagram (see Figure 2) because this part illustrates the initiation period
of the innovation process. Afterwards, interviewees were asked to think about the period of
development (green part of the diagram (see Figure 2) by asking the anchor question “Please
think about the time up to the point were you decided to develop care farming on your farm”.
Finally, the interviewer asked to fill in the blue part of the diagram (see Figure 2), which illustrates
the implementation period. In this case the question was “Please think about the time since you
have been practicing care farming. Who is important and how important are they?” The function
and effort of social relations was explained in the interview, while additional knowledge about the
subjective defined importance of these relations became generated through the network diagram.
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Subsequently, the dynamic of important social relations, in particular innovation periods, reached
a higher visibility in the diagram.
important people/organizations
Developmental period
less important but relevant
people/organizations
very important
people/organizations
Initiation period
Implementation period
important people/organizations
Developmental period
important people/organizations
Developmental period
less important but relevant
people/organizations
very important
people/organizations
Initiation period
Implementation period
Figure 2: Network diagram (Source: Adapted from Kahn and Antonucci, 1980).
The interview as well as the statements whilst filling in the network diagram were recorded and
verbatim transcribed. Supplementary to the above mentioned within-method triangulation a “data
triangulation” (FLICK 2009, 444) was realised by generating a mix of visual (network diagram) and
verbal data (interview).
4.2.5 Additional information about the procedure of data
collection
To manage a comparative study between Austria and the Netherlands it was of high importance
to realise research cooperation with the Netherlands, due to the difficulty of interviewing farmers
in a second language. In reality, the cooperation was realised with “Plant Research International”
in Wageningen, a research institute that has been focusing on care farming for more than ten
years. It was also advantageous that the native language of the direct cooperation partner was
German. It ensured that bias was minimised within the data, as care farmers were interviewed in
Dutch; data was later translated and transcribed to German, which is the mother tongue of the
analyser.
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Besides the theoretical instruction given by the author to the cooperation partner, the author also
participated in the first two interviews that were realised by the Dutch cooperation partner. This
allowed giving further feedback to make sure that the interviews with Austrian and Dutch care
farmers were kept as similar as possible but also gave the author the possibility to visit Dutch care
farms and therefore attain knowledge about them in the field, which is seen as a positive
secondary outcome.
The author developed the whole methodological and theoretical approach, as well as all
instruments for data collection and the research focus. Furthermore, the same data collection
instruments were applied in both countries as well as the same procedure followed. The
beginning of the procedure was the face-to-face interview, followed by filling in the network
diagram. Subsequently, care farmers were asked to fill in the questionnaire. Finally, the interviewercompleted the post interview protocol, which was important to understand the interview situation
when analysing the data.
The selection of the care farming projects seemed to be easier in the Netherlands because of the
central registration of the projects. Based on the homepage (www.zorgboeren.nl) it was easy to
get information about the number of projects within a region. Besides photos, a description and
the contact details of each project as well as the contact details of the regional coordinator are
available online. Moreover, the relevant regional care farming organisations cooperated with theresearch partner from Wageningen and supported them by providing the contact details of their
members. Case selection in Austria was much more difficult because there are only a few existing
care farms, which are also not centrally registered. Therefore no regional exception was made.
Thus, case selection was primarily realised by snowball sampling and subordinated by the
maximum variation sampling technique. First of all, experts were asked for addresses of care
farmers. Subsequently care farmers were asked if they knew someone else who still practices or
already terminated care farming. Additionally, cases were found by searching the internet.
To sum up, the research cooperation partner from Wageningen conducted all interviews with
Dutch care farmers. All expert interviews in Austria and the Netherlands, as well as the interviews
with Austrian care farmers, were conducted by the author herself. However, the research
cooperation allowed collecting data from a country where care farming is in a different
developing stage. The cooperation enabled the author to spend two months in the Netherlands to
conduct all Dutch expert interviews and to reach a higher understanding about care farming in
this specific country.
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44..33 Data analysis
The aim of understanding the innovation process demands a qualitative approach when collecting
and analysing the data, which means the qualitative approach allows to consider the individual
perception, interpretation, action and sense making practice of the interviewee. To take the
individual orientation into account it is of importance to analyse the interviews as a case.
Furthermore, it is of significance to find similarities and differences between the cases as well as
to allow generalisation based on case and group comparisons for developing a theory. For that
reason “thematic coding” (FLICK 2009, 318) was applied.
This method was developed for comparative studies with “[t]he underlying assumption […] that
in different social worlds or groups, differing views can be found.” (FLICK 2009, 318). Thematic
coding is organised in order to assure comparability by “defining topics, and at the same time
remaining open to the views related to them.” (FLICK 2009, 318). This is enabled by following a
“multi-stage procedure” whereby in the first step, each case involved is described shortly, “the
motto of the case” needs to be defined and central topics relevant to the research question are
summarised (cf. FLICK 2009, 319). Subsequently, a profound analysis of single cases, or in other
words coding , is realised.
Coding means a comparison between different phenomenon, cases, terms and the formulation of
questions about the text to identify structures and core categories. According to S TRAUSS (1998)
“open coding” is the starting point and means asking questions about the text such as: What is it
about? Who is involved? Which aspects of the phenomenon are discussed? The result of open
coding should be a list of codes and categories (cf. S TRAUSS 1998, 57-62). “Selective coding” is
aimed at developing a core category with sub-categories and patterns within the data, while
conditions under which patterns emerge should be discovered (cf. S TRAUSS 1998, 63-64). Core
categories developed by selective coding of single cases are crosschecked in further cases. As a
consequence, a “thematic structure” is developed and allows comparing cases and groups (cf.
FLICK 2009, 319).
In this research all interviews were analysed singularly, the central issues within the interview were
described shortly and interviews were analysed by applying open and selective coding. Hence, a
thematic structure and core categories was generated partly deductive and partly inductive, andused for analysing further cases, to increase comparability. The structure was modified and
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enlarged if new categories were found in further cases and allowed case and group comparison by
applying it. Only some parts of the interview were analysed in more detail by following the open
and selective coding technique if these paragraphs seemed to be relevant from the author’s point
of view. This technique of thematic coding was applied to analyse the interviews with care
farmers and experts. Moreover, the conversation whilst filling in the network diagram was
verbatim transcribed and analysed by the thematic coding technique. Additonally, the diagram –
visual data – was analysed and interpreted for additional information.
The network diagrams (see Figure 2) are analysed in detail and presented in order to compare the
perceived importances of certain actors in different periods. Initially, actors were clustered in
groups, for instance, if farmers wrote three names of different family members within the
concentric circles, they were clustered to the role of a family member (short family) etc.
Depending on how important actors are perceived to be, meaning if they are located within the
diagram close to ego, and in this respect perceived to be very important, or if they are ranked to
be relevant only and are written in the third circle of the diagram, influenced if they were valued
with a higher or lower number. The formula that is applied in order to define the distance
between ego (care farmer) and a certain supporter to emphasise the supporter’s importance
perceived by the care farmer is calculated by the formula that reads as follows. Depending on
how frequently certain actors were mentioned within the certain periods multiplied by theperceived importance, results in the role impact (frequency within a sector multiplied by the
importance = role impact), whereby the minimum length of the line within the diagram is 1cm
and the maximum is 11cm. By applying this formula it is possible to present care farmers that
belong to a differently sized group that also has a different amount of social capital within the
same diagram (Group of Perg, Group of Landzijde, Group of VUZB, Group of AAT/AAP and
Group of independent) and enables to compare the varying importance of supporters across the
groups.
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Formula: (11-(a*x1 – b*x2 – c*x3) = d)
a = 5/(0.5*n)
b = 5/(0.75*n)
c = 5/(1.5*n)
n = number of care farmers within a group
x1 = a certain supporter that is perceived to be very important
x2 = a certain supporter that is perceived to be important
x3 = a certain supporter that is perceived to be relevant
In addition to the visualisation of supporters’ importance, the qualitative interview data was used
in order to find out why the mentioned actors are perceived to be important and which form of
support they transfer. In summary, verbal and visual data were used and analysed by the
application of qualitative analysis, respectively thematic coding and network analysis. This
procedure allows presenting 32 network cards within one diagram and allows in this respect to
substantially interpret and present the perceived importance of actors and forms of support
during the process of innovation.
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5 EXPLORATION AND
SPECIFICATION OF THE
SAMPLES’ CONTEXT
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55..11 Austria and the Netherlands:
geographical characteristics
Austria and the Netherlands are members of the European Union and diverse in terms of
geography and politics. The first is an alpine region without contact to the sea, whereas the latter
is flat and located at the North Sea. The figure below shows the geographical position of both
countries within the European Union. Austria, as one of the Alpine states, is a neighbour of
Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy and Switzerland. The Netherlands is
smaller than Austria and is a neighbour of Germany and Belgium and borders the North Sea, which explains its long history of trade. The map4 below shows the geographical position of both
countries.
Figure 3: Geographical position of Austria and the Netherlands within the European Union.
4 http://www.weltkarte.com/europa/indexindex.htm, 25.01.2010
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Austria can be geographically described as hilly and mountainous in many parts of the country. It
is a member of the European Union and small in size, with about 83 872 square kilometres and a
population of about 8.4 million (cf. W IRTSCHAFTSKAMMER -ÖSTERREICH 2009, 1). Indicated by
ÖNACE 2008, 70% of Austrians labour force is working in the service sector, about one quarter
in industry and trade and only 5.4% of the economically active population is working in
agriculture and forestry (cf. S TATISTIK -AUSTRIA 2009, 8). The Netherlands is a very small and
geographically flat country (41,500 square kilometres) (cf. DUTCH MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE
2008, 7). Compared to Austria, the population density is high in the Netherlands because the
country’s population is twice as large (16.5 million) but about half the area (cf.
W IRTSCHAFTSKAMMER -ÖSTERREICH 2009, 1). Similar to Austria, the service sector amounts to
about 73.9%, the industry about 23.9% and the agricultural sector about 2.1% of the labour force
in the Netherlands. Besides the above-described differences of the investigated countries in terms
of geography, important differences in politics need to be depicted for a better understanding of
the whole development of innovative practices.
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55..22 Characteristics and differences in
terms of the political culture of Austriaand the Netherlands
I have chosen to mention only a view selected aspects to point out the different political culture
of the countries to get a broader view about the surroundings in which care farming occurs and
develops differently. Similar to other advanced industrial democracies, Austria and the
Netherlands are examples of neo-corporatist states. Nevertheless, the system characteristics of
neo-corporatism are not visible to such an extent in the Netherlands as is the case in Austria or
Sweden (cf. K EMAN 1993, 154-155).
SCHMITTER (1974) distinguishes between different types of systems such as pluralism and
corporatism. He recognises that both systems “accept and attempt to cope with the growing
structural differentiation and interest diversity of the modern polity, but they offer opposing
political remedies and divergent images of the institutional form that such a modern system of interest representation will take [place]” (cf. SCHMITTER 1974, 97). Corporatism is characterised
by
[…] advocate controlled emergence, quantitative limitation, vertical stratification andcomplementary interdependence. Compared to pluralists who place their faith in the shifting balance of mechanically intersecting forces; corporatists appeal to the functional adjustment of anorganically interdependent whole. (SCHMITTER 1974, 97).
Neo-corporatism’s aim is conflict resolution and prevention through an organised cooperation
between the parties of the government and relevant socioeconomic interest groups in order toensure political and social stability. According to K EMAN (1993) the term neo-corporatism
comprises that the state and relevant socioeconomic interest groups (trade unions and employers
organisations) are related in order to formulate and realise policy together (cf. K EMAN 1993, 154).
In the Netherlands the most important groups of minorities for a long period were organised
through prongs (multi-pronged policy) that developed historically as corporative-political camps
of Catholics, orthodox protestants and later socialists (cf. K EMAN 1993, 144). This form of
consociational democracy based on multi-pronged policy in the 50’s and 60’s led to an ideological
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segmentation of society along vertical cleavages. Overlapping memberships and cross cutting
cleavages predominantly existed within the prongs only. In the 70’s this changed through
secularisation and deconfessionalisation and as a consequence of that, the power of the Christian
Democratic parties decreased and societal interests were no longer exclusively represented
through prongs but new political parties, and social movements developed (cf. IBID. 1993, 156).
K EMAN (1993) argues that this re-politicisation also led to coalitions between different interest
groups as long as their own interests were followed, similar to Olson’s logic of the collective
action. Moreover, there was a trend for interest groups to directly contact the ministry in order to
operate more effectively, for instance, the industrial association and entrepreneurs association was
in contact with the Ministry for Trade almost daily, according to K EMAN (1993, 156).
Presently, the Netherlands are characterised by a variety of institutionalised interlinkages between
the state and organisations, and negotiations (overleg) are still a specific characteristic of political
intermediation and part of the mixed economy, K LEINFELD (1993) claims. Moreover, he
mentions that the currently existing interest intermediation structures offer a frame for more
competition and conflicts as the role of the state is ambivalent, as it expands and degrades at the
same time (cf. K LEINFELD 1993, 260). Nevertheless, K EMAN (1993) maintains that in the present
time the Netherlands are closer to a model of consensus, and a proportional democracy is less
existent (cf. K EMAN 1993, 154).
In contrast to that, PELINKA (1993) emphasises Austria to be a „party-state“ and this aspect is
more strongly pronounced than in most other western political systems of Europe. There is a
proportional representation of ruling parties in government, administration and the public sector
and parties determine the political process of decision, whereas this is a tradition that has not
changed in more than one century (cf. PELINKA 1993, 102). PELINKA (1993) refers to work from
(GERLICH, GRANDE et al. 1983; PELINKA and PLASSER 1988) and emphasises that Austrian
parties appropriate the central positions of the political system in a strict sense such as the
parliament and government, but they also determine the access to other relevant social positions
like economy, education etc. Moreover, he claims that Austrian parties are strongly connected
with the trade associations (Champers and the Austrian Trade Union Federation) that are
bipartisan, this typically being a strong connection to the large parties (i.e. the conservative party
and the social democrats). Both of these factors characterise Austria’s party-state (cf. PELINKA
1993, 102).
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According to PELINKA (1993) the tight linkage between parties and organisations (social partners)
was the reason for the priority of classical materialistic values like economic growth, policy of full
employment and welfare state, whereas the distance to post-materialist priorities are especially
large. This concentration of the party-system directed to the traditional large parties and its
linkage with social partners allows a high concentration of political decision processes at the
highest level (cf. PELINKA 1993, 107).
Both, Austria and the Netherlands are neo-corporatist but there are important differences in
terms of their political culture that might be influenced by their history. There is a long history of
trade in the Netherlands with the consequence of more openness for modernisation. The
contrary is true for Austria, which is characterised by a rather traditional conservative political
culture. Modernisation in the Dutch system is obvious through the Dutch policy making process, which is much more characterised by participative and learning oriented models and the policy
system is less bureaucratically organised than is the case in Austria.
An example for applied participative models in the Netherlands is the transition management,
hence the Dutch society uses transition management successfully to manage the transition of
sustainable energy, mobility, agriculture and water use, but also to increase biodiversity and to
save natural resources (cf. K EMP, LOORBACH et al. 2006, 402). Clearly, K EMP, LOORBACH et al.
(2006) argue that transition management is a multilevel model of governance, which allowsguiding the process of social transformation by bringing the state and non-state actors together.
In addition to that, it often allows more innovative or radical solutions (cf. IBID. 2006, 402).
Transition management, state K EMP, LOORBACH et al. (2006), counteracts the problem of
different perspectives on nature by different people, or that of “[d]istributed control”, which
demands an external coordinator to find common long-term goals and visions. Moreover, it helps
to overcome the problem of the demand of short-term action, which is often necessary for policy
makers to save their powerful position, and “long term structural change”. Additionally, an arena,external to the conventional short-term oriented policy, is established to enable the development
of common accepted long-term goals independent from short-term political changes (cf. IBID.
2006, 391-392). According to K EMP, LOORBACH et al. (2006), transition management connects
bottom-up processes and top-town planning strategically by coordinating actors from different
levels and by trying to concentrate on common visions and on common long-term goals, which is
actually called the “strategic level” (cf. IBID. 2006, 393). However, transition management is a
participatory instrument that allows adaptive planning by structuring certain problems and
strategic experiments for learning purposes for further planning. Different interests and visions as
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well as the whole process are coordinated outside of the regular political arena, hence multilevel
governance and the development of creative common accepted solutions is enabled (cf. IBID.
2006, 400).
In contrast to Austria, the Netherlands has a much more pragmatic and learning-oriented
relationship to politics by exploring new political ways with low resource investment. Different
instruments are applied to find new solutions for a certain problem, those experiments are
accompanied intensively, results are evaluated and if they are satisfactory the certain solution will
be continued or institutionalised. This is a different pragmatism that does not require classical
bureaucratic segmented structures but offers a higher flexibility. It makes a difference if new
solutions can only be developed within classical e.g. psychiatric institutions or if it is possible to
test new forms of therapy and care within an open space in society. If these forms of trial anderror are practiced in many different situations within the Netherlands, it is assumed in this work
that it is more likely that Dutch people accept and realise this form of experiment in the case of
care farming more than Austrians do.
Thus, it is assumed that the development of care farming in Austria and the Netherlands shows
characteristics minted through the political culture, typical of each nation, which is why empirical
findings about the development of care farming and the acceptance of this new practice, as
perceived by experts and care farmers, will be analysed in this study in order to provide the reader with further information about the samples’ context, independent from the main research
questions.
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55..33 Characteristics and differences in
terms of agriculture Austria has a total of 189 591 agricultural and forestry enterprises, which were counted in 2005
(cf. BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR L AND- UND FORSTWIRTSCHAFT 2008, 8). As a result of its
geographical characteristics, agriculture is predominantly small structured and has an average size
of 18.8 hectare land area, respectively 34.7 hectare of cultivated area. Small farms, in particular,
have to find new income possibilities within the food production, such as the production of old
sorts of vegetables or the production organic food. The latter is widespread in Austria, which is
the leading country in Europe in terms of organic farming with about 13.5% organic farms in
2007 (cf. IBID. 2008, 8). Besides converting from conventional agriculture to organic farming,
agri-tourism is widely accepted and popular in Austria. About 15 500 farming enterprises offer
holidaying at a farm, which is about every 5th
tourism enterprise or every 7th
spare bed in Austria
(cf. IBID. 2008, 50). Moreover, additional non-farming business on a farm (farm holidays, direct
marketing etc.) account for about 5% of the production value of the farming economic sector,
whereas 3% were agricultural services in 2007. While the production value of agricultural services
is decreasing (- 7%), that of additional non-farming business on a farm is increasing (+ 3,7%)
compared to 2006 (cf. IBID. 2008, 14). However, these business strategies of practicing additional
non-farming business on a farm are also enabled by subsidies by the EU, as about 59% of the
total sum of subsidies is used in Austria for enhancing rural development (cf.
BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR L AND- UND FORSTWIRTSCHAFT 2008, 10).
In contrast to Austria, the Netherlands are one of the three leading exporters of farm products,
next to the United States and France, whereaby about 3.5% of the Dutch population work in the
agricultural sector (cf. DUTCH MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE 2008, 45). Half of the country (41,500
square kilometres) is farmed, whereas about 8% is woodland (cf. IBID. 2008, 7). The size of farms
has increased continually in the last two decades and some farms are so called “mega-farms” with
about 385 hectares of arable land (cf. IBID. 2008, 21). The number of farms is about 79,435, while
only 2.5% of the total farmland was farmed organic, or in other words 1362 certified organic
farms existed in 2006 (cf. IBID. 2008, 25). ELINGS AND H ASSInk (2006, 164) cite van der Ploeg
(2002) who states that about 40% of Dutch farmers practiced other activities apart from foodproduction in 2002. Multifunctional agriculture is not only a phenomenon of countries with
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predominantly small farming enterprises but also of regions with larger farms. It should also be
mentioned that multifunctional agriculture, especially care farming, has prevalently developed in
parts of the country where farms are relatively small and less specialised, such as in Gelderland
(cf. ELINGS and H ASSINK 2006, 166).
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55..44 Characteristics and differences in
terms of care farming
It is difficult to compare facts about Dutch and Austrian care farming, because in contrast to the
Netherlands, only a limited amount of literature and knowledge has been generated in Austria
until yet.
Austrian care farms are not numbered or centrally registered, W IESINGER , NEUHAUSER et al.
(2006) estimate that a number of 250 care farms exist in this country (cf. W IESINGER ,
NEUHAUSER et al. 2006, 233). In former times Austria’s agriculture provided mentally ill people
with an employee role, but since somatic causes for some diseases have been noticed, the
therapeutic function of agriculture is rediscovered. The Austrian care farming sector is still in an
early development stage, nevertheless some initiatives and organisations have already been
established.
An enthusiastic member of the regional Landwirtschaftskammer (the Austrian lobby for general
farms) of Upper Austria initiated the pilot project “assisted living at a farm” for elderly in 1996.
About ten farmers participated in this project with the aspiration of enhancing the existence of
farms by a new income possibility. Most of the farms offer one or two apartments for the elderly.
Mainly female farmers graduated in elderly care, but in reality 24hour care turned out to be more
challenging than expected. In general, courses for elderly care contain care and medical issues,
housekeeping, first aid, the mobilisation of clients but also communication and conflict
management, knowledge about the professional specific legal basis. The amount of education
hours differs, but in the case of Perg a 1000 hours education program was followed. In general,
people with a compulsory school degree are allowed to attend the course for elderly care. The EU
supported the project of assisted living at the farm in Perg financially, or more accurately the 5b-
program, which had the objective of supporting agriculture to diversify. Moreover, the non-
commercial club “ÖKL”, founded by the Ministry for Agriculture and responsible among other
things for the implementation of new ideas within the agricultural sector to enhance rural
development, wrote a guideline for assisted living at a farm for elderly in 1999. The pioneers
themselves founded a regional union to increase their power of self-assertion in terms of care for
elderly on the farm. However, there is no further support or evaluation of the project known andthe sector itself did not extend.
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In the meantime ÖKL initiated animal assisted therapy and pedagogic with farm animals, which
seems to be a new promising project in the care farming field and was financially supported by
the Ministry for Agriculture. From 2003 to 2007 it was a so-called innovation project, since then
it has been an official education programme. In 2006 a pilot education programme was started
and a revised course is now offered by ÖKL. The course animal assisted therapy, pedagogic and
affirmative action at farms ( Tiergestützte Therapie, Pädagogik und Fördermaßnahmen am Bauernhof ) is
offered by ÖKL and in the meantime has become a LFI certification course. The three main
quality criteria are the education training, the preparation and suitability of the animal, animal
health and species appropriate husbandry and safety at the farm, whereby those quality criteria are
part of the course. The course contains four modules, namely personality education
( Persönlichkeitsbildung ), basics about animal assisted work at farms, business management and legal
basis and applied animal assisted therapy at farms. The course is organised into two-day training
packages per a month and lasts for 15 months. The target group is people from the social sector
(therapists, pedagogues etc) and farmers (99% are female) (for more detail see ÖKL5 ).
Participants also need a cooperation partner and have to attend the course together with them.
This requirement is not valid when participants are double qualified, which is the case for more
than two thirds of those attending. ÖKL informs larger organisations from the health and
agricultural sector to ensure that the topic is already known by care farmer’s counterparts.
Beyond that, they have developed the education programme based on research results of the firstpilot programme, as well as a quality system to make sure that care farming will develop in a
highly professionalised way. In addition the organisation negotiates fair and generally accepted
wages per hour for care farmers who offer animal assisted therapy.
Beside the initiatives of animal assisted therapy and/or pedagogic with farm animals and 24hour
care for elderly at farms, the sector of horticultural therapy has been developing over the last ten
years. This form of therapy is predominantly used in “hospitals, rehabilitation centres, nursing
homes, vocational training institutions, schools, day centres, farms and nursery gardens.” (cf.
W IESINGER , NEUHAUSER et al. 2006, 238). The Association of Horticulture (ÖGG) developed an
education programme for horticultural therapy on university level. People who attend the course
for horticultural therapy are so called academic experts for horticultural therapy, whereby the
education course lasts four semesters (60ECTS) and is occupationally organised. The educational
program contains the topics horticulture, medicine and care, ergo therapy, pedagogic and
5 http://www.oekl.at/projekte/tiergestützteTherapie/
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psychology, with only two education hours focussing on psycho hygiene. Target groups of this
course are people who already work in institutions that offer horticultural therapy and who want
to work in horticultural therapy on the basis of their original profession (predominantly therapists
or care professionals) or people who plan therapy gardens. The training course started in 2006
and is offered through cooperation between the two universities, University for Agrarian and
Environmental Pedagogic and Donau-University Krems (for more details see Donau University)6.
It is illustrated in literature (W IESINGER , NEUHAUSER et al. 2006) that four different forms of
Austrian agricultural care institutions for mentally disabled people exist. Although traditional
structures and the value system have changed, “[t]raditional-household-based schemes” exist,
with clients ranging from close family members to distant relatives in most cases. Farms can also
offer sheltered places of work and receive supplements by the state when registering their clients with the job centre and if paid wages are agreed upon by the social partners. Those clients have to
meet at least 50% of the regular work performance. For those clients who do not meet the
minimum of 50% of the regular work performance, so called “nursing places and occupational
therapy is offered” primarily by sorts of institutions dealing with agriculture. Professionals from
the social/care sector are required to guide those clients properly, whereas the government pays
care rates for nursing. A fourth form of care farms is focused on the reintegration of clients into
the primary or secondary labour market. Clients should appropriate skills by working in the fields
of agriculture, horticulture, house-keeping etc. (cf. W IESINGER , NEUHAUSER et al. 2006, 235).
There is no high awareness of care farming within the Austrian society. Science is only starting to
focus on this field, although there is almost no research. This field is also unknown among
politics and no special laws or political regulations are set up to support the development of care
farming.
There is no variety in terms of the client group, as it is predominantally the mentally and
physically disabled and the elderly, but Austria is an innovative leader in terms of forms of care
on farms. This country offers animal assisted therapy, horticultural therapy and provides
meaningful work for people with special needs.
In the Netherlands, except for less professional care for elderly or disabled people at extended
family farms in former times, care farming was experimented with for the first time in 1922 when
6 http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/de/studium/gartentherapie/index.php
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institutional and community care was combined in this country (cf. H ASSINK and VAN DIJK 2006,
165). Nowadays there are more than 700 existing Dutch care farms and the number of farms
offering care has been increasing rapidly since 1998, when about 75 care farms were counted (cf.
H ASSINK and VAN DIJK 2006, 166). Care farming has developed as a bottom-up process, forced
by some pioneers e.g. members of Omslag , who were predominantly inspired by the
antroposophic philosophy (cf. H ASSINK and VAN DIJK 2006, 165).
Omslag is a small foundation in the Netherlands founded about 15 years ago that has only ten
members who are located all over the country and are in regular contact to support the
development of care farming. ELINGS and H ASSINK (2006) state that the foundation organises
conferences, initiates research projects in cooperation with the Wageningen University and
stimulates the public debate about care farming (cf. ELINGS and H ASSINK 2006, 172). The Wageningen University in particular, which is the cooperation partner of this study, has done
research in this field for more than ten years.
In 1999 the Association of Green Care Farmers was founded, according to ELINGS and H ASSINK
(2006) to protect care farmers’ interest. The association is a part of LTO, which is the Dutch
Organisation for Agriculture and Horticulture and generally the lobby for regular farms (cf.
ELINGS and H ASSINK 2006, 172).
Two years earlier, when about 75 non-organised care farms existed, it was thought by some
pioneers that a knowledge-centre was needed. Some of them negotiated with the government to
get subsidies and in 1999 the National Support Centre ( Landelijk Steunpunt: Landbouw en Zorg ) for care
farming was founded and subsidised by the ministries of Agriculture and Welfare and Health for
about 10 years. A central aim of the National Support Centre was to set up a database to register
national care farming projects. Moreover, it was not only responsible for developing but also
actualising the database about forms of care farms, their location and types of clients. A quality
system was set up and the centre was allowed to certify care farms. In addition to that, a website
was created to make the number of farms, types of farms and their location visible for clients and
farmers. Guidelines for farmers about how to start up a care farm and further information were
provided by these organisations. Since the beginning of 2009, the government no longer supports
the National Support Centre financially and a new self-sustaining organisation has been founded.
New actors have shown interest in this business field, such as LTO (Land- en Tuinbouw
Organisatie Nederland) or the Rabobank, which is similar to the Raiffeisenbank in Austria. The
development of the new organisation and its shareholders is not yet clear.
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Beside this development on a national level, ELLINGS AND H ASSINK (2006) indicate that in the
meantime there are regional groups and associations of green care farmers in almost every province,
which enhance the information exchange between care farmers, introduce a quality system and
also negotiate with care institutions, insurance companies etc. (cf. ELINGS and H ASSINK 2006,
171). Regional groups vary in terms of form of support provided for care farmers but are also
organised differently, which means some are non-commercial and generally founded by care
farmers themselves to support each other, while others are commercial. Some offer regional
studies in which they offer presentations for care farmers about care and medical issues, the care
farming relevant legal basis etc. a few times a year.
The current political trend is that of decentralisation, which means the move from political
responsibilities in terms of care farming from provinces to municipalities ( CF. ELINGS ANDH ASSINK 2006, 173). Both the Ministry for Agriculture and the Ministry of Welfare and Health
believe that the care farming sector is important for the country, and should be able to
emancipate to be self-depended in the future.
ELINGS and H ASSINK (2006) state that the development of care farming was a bottom-up process
and at a later date enhanced by the above-mentioned Dutch organisations and associations, which
has resulted in different forms of care farms in terms of the target group and activities offered at
the farms. In the past, mentally ill or people with psychiatric diseases have predominant been theclient base, although the number of “elderly, people with an addiction, people with burn-out,
long-term unemployed, children, people in isolation, homeless people and clients in a social or
work integration project” (ELINGS and H ASSINK 2006, 166) clients are growing, presumably
because of demand for these (work/care/therapy) places. Dutch care farmers are experienced in
working with a mixed client group, which offers advantages such as mutual support of clients
with different skills and access to different financial sources for the farmers (cf. IBID. 2006, 167).
It is argued that there would be a high potential for long-term care for elderly, especially people with dementia, although currently the majority of care farms offer daytime care but not 24hour
care (cf. DRIEST 2008, 111).
How farmers reach payment for their care activities is dependent on their client group but also on
the form of cooperation they have with health institutions or the clients directly. As pointed out
by and ELINGS and H ASSINK (2006), about a third of Dutch care farms hold a formal cooperation
with health care institutions, which means that farmers have to negotiate with the health
institution about payment for offered care at the farm. In addition to that, independent care farms(25%) exist, which means that they cooperate directly with clients who earn a so-called personal
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budget (PGB). Clients or their representatives can use this personal budget to buy care on farms
and also at other places. The number of care farms being “ AWBZ” accredited, which means
having the formal status of a health organisation, is increasing. A very small minority is part of
(conventional) health institutions (cf. ELINGS and H ASSINK 2006, 168).
Independent from all those different forms of financial regulations and forms of cooperation,
care activity offered at farms is predominantly a form of “ worthwhile daytime occupation (90%),
work training and/or a sheltered place to work (30%)” and only a small percentage (20%) offers a
place to live in the Netherlands (cf. ELINGS and H ASSINK 2006, 168). At the moment, a two-year
course „zorg en landbouw“ exists and is offered, for instance, by the Groenhorst- College in
Dronten but also in Rotterdam and near Amsterdam through cooperation with Landzijde. People
that attend this extra occupational course become educated as an attendant and manager of a carefarm, the course costs about 750 Euros a year and is held for one day a week for two years,
whereby participants receive a diploma that is recognised by the government. The target group
are people who want to practice or already practice care farming independently if they are
originally professional farmers or care givers. “I attended this course in order to know how to
deal with people with schizophrenia or drug addicts or alcoholics etc.” (Group of Landzijde, care
farmer, adopted, Ruben Z.) The course provides attendees with knowledge about care and
medicine, for instance, diseases and occurring symptoms and how to deal with clients in terms of
that. Moreover, social competence is an important part of these lectures, meaning how to
communicate with clients and how to simplify the work at the farm in order to make it
understandable for clients. The Dutch understanding of care farming differs in terms of the role
relation between a client and a care giver, as it is of most importance to offer a form of
meaningful work to employees, whereby the farmer undertakes the role of a boss instead of a care
giver. How this role is undertaken is a further part of the course. Participants learn how to
manage agricultural tasks, while clients’ needs are considered in order to maintain the farm but
also to ensure that the client can fulfil farming tasks that are meaningful. Business questions, such
as how to write a business plan, reach subsidies or loans and find cooperation partners, such as
municipalities and care institutions, are additional parts of this education training. Knowledge
about care farming relevant financial structures, such as the ABWZ accreditation or the personal
care budget are taught, as well as how to realise the business plan in practice, meaning “to put it
on the ground that is also an important part of the lessons” (representative of Omslag who
developed the education programme). It is the care farmer’s choice if he/she wants to attend this
specific care farming education training, as it is not a prerequisite in order to offer care at thefarm or to acquire clients with a personal care budget.
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There are no clear documentations about the different target groups of Austrian care farms but
care farming seems to have originated in both investigated countries in the psychiatric sector.
Furthermore, some pioneers in Austria already practice 24hour care, whereas only a minority of
the Dutch projects offer more than daytime care. In daytime care the variety of the target group
seems to be larger in the Netherlands, because innovative projects in cooperation with the cities
offer care for homeless, long-term unemployed, people with addiction problems or burn-out
patients. On the contrary, mentally or physically disabled and the elderly are the majority on
Austrians care farms. Most of the activities offered in the Netherlands focus on providing
meaningful work for people with special needs, whereas Austria offers ancillary animal assisted
and horticultural therapy at daytime as well as long-term care for elderly. The main difference in
terms of support centres and associations between both countries is that the Dutch care farming
sector is centrally coordinated, its development is relatively well documented, unlike in Austria
where some organisations exist but a central coordination and documentation is missing.
Moreover, regional support organisations are much more pronounced in the Netherlands, which
means the number of organisations and forms of support offered by them is higher. Indeed
Austrian’s care farming sector has not developed far in terms of number of care farms, although
it is conspicuous that this country has put an emphasis on the quality of the projects. The former
Dutch National Support Centre developed general quality guidelines for care farming and the
possibility to become certified as a care farm if you follow these guidelines, but farmers are notconstrained to do so in order to acquire clients with a personal budget for instance. In Austria
quality and certification guidelines have recently been developed for some forms of care farming,
for instance animal assisted therapy, and in this respect farmers will have to follow them in order
to reach subsidies. Moreover, in the Netherlands the quality guidelines address more the safety of
farms and to a lesser extent care farmers’ education whereas the certification of farms in Austria
that offer animal assisted therapy will include the demand of education trainings, although
certifications are only in the developmental stage at the moment and have not yet been applied.
Nevertheless, an education program for care farming in general has already been developed in the
Netherlands and care farmers are able to attend this two-year course, although it is not
compulsory. Austrian care farmers can attend a more specialised course in animal assisted or
garden therapy but a care farming course in general does not exist. As soon as farmers from
Austria want to offer care at their farm, they need to become educated as traditional care
professionals, consequently care farmers from Austria need either to become, for instance, a
professional social worker, social pedagogue, nurse etc. or to cooperate with those professionalsin order to be allowed to offer care at the farm. In addition to education training in care tasks,
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Austrian care farmers can attend general courses such as education trainings for entrepreneurs,
but need to transfer the general information in order to make it useable for care farming.
Considering the topic from a quantitative point of view, the Netherlands has a larger number of
care farms but is forced today to professionalise the sector. Finally, care farming is rather known
as an additional income possibility for farmers and also as an additional form of therapy or care in
the Dutch society, in contrast to Austria.
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55..55 The care farming development
within different political cultures fromexperts’ perspective
The comparative study between Austria and the Netherlands allows a further insight into the
different political cultures in order to explain why care farming as a new practice could have
developed differently in both countries based on inductive generated findings by interviewing
care farming experts. It is already explained in chapter 5.2 that the Netherlands generally act more
in an experimental way, for instance, in environmental questions, whereas empirical findings of
this research substantiate that this approach is also practiced in terms of care farming, with the
contrary being true for Austria. This perspective offers additional explanatory power in order to
understand why a high number of care farms but with rather low professionalised care farmers in
terms of education in conventional care developed in the Netherlands and why this seems not to
be applicable in Austria.
5.5.1 The Dutch development of care farming
The previous development of care farming in the Netherlands can be described on the one hand
as a bottom up process because farmers who followed the anthroposophic philosophy were the
first who started to practice care farming, with some of them being founders of Omslag. Omslag is
a small foundation in the Netherlands founded about 15 years ago that has only ten members
who are located all over the country and are in regular contact to support the development of
care farming. ELINGS and H ASSINK (2006) depict that the foundation organises conferences,
initiates research projects in cooperation with the Wageningen University and stimulates the
public debate about care farming (cf. ELINGS and H ASSINK 2006, 172). Moreover, in 1997 about
75 care farmers existed in this country and at this time they were generally not organised or in
regularly contact with each other. The necessity of subsidies in order to establish a knowledge
centre was already recognised by some of them.
Findings have shown that in the late 90’s care farmers were looking for people with leadershipqualities who identified with the idea of this alternative form of care and who were willing to
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represent care farmers’ requirements by negotiating with different stakeholders. A former director
of a knowledge centre for cattle was one of those people with leadership qualities and became not
only the chairman of first meetings in order to negotiate with different stakeholders about
subsidies but also the head of the board of the former National Support Centre at a later stage.
First meetings between different stakeholders were in this respect initiated indirectly by care
farming pioneers and not by the government or other stakeholders.
The first meetings between representatives of Provincial Governments, the National
Government, the Dutch agricultural and horticultural organisation and the representative of care
farmers were aimed at exploring common visions and interests in terms of care farming and the
question if subsidies can be obtained for enhancing its further development. The Ministry for
Agriculture was interested in diversifying agriculture whereas the Ministry for Welfare and Healthappreciated the development of a range of different care places, as care farming seemed for them
to be one possibility in order to reach their goals, thus they agreed upon founding a National
Support Centre and financed it for four years. Care farmers’ representative states “[…] and we
decided to found a board, a foundation for agriculture and care. That is the beginning of the
organisation also the beginning of the knowledge centre for care farming.”
This non-commercial knowledge centre, respectively National Support Centre, was subsidised by
the government and coordinated all existing care farms, registered them, advertised for carefarming and developed a website and qualification guidelines, whereby the latter are optional
national guidelines, and can be used on a voluntary basis. Through the development of these
qualification guidelines, the members of the National Support Centre tried to set up new rules in
order to ensure safety for clients but also to enable the development of care farming, which was
seen to be possible only if the rather restrictive health and care laws are not applied but adapted
for care farms.
Subsequently, the ministries subsidised the National Support Centre for about 10 years, but after
four years and a further three years, new applications were necessary, therefore the Support
Centre needed to make a kind of evaluation in order to demonstrate the necessity of its support.
A scenario study was realised and the four possibilities “to stop, to continue, to become a
commercial organisation and the fourth possibility of a mix of selling support and offering
support for care farmers for free” (representative of the National Support Centre) were discussed.
At this time the continuation of the non-commercial National Support Centre was understood to
be important because the care farming sector was not seen as being able to support itself.
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I think it was five or six years ago that was the time when we asked a second time for subsidies andin that moment we thought commercial is not possible because at this time we had too little carefarmers and as a consequence the development of care farming would have stopped, hence closing the National Support Centre was in that moment not good. (Representative of the National SupportCentre)
In the meantime the importance of the National Support Centre changed and as a consequence it
was closed in January 2009. New stakeholders are presently trying to establish a reorganised
commercial National Support Centre. At the moment the care farming sector is understood to be
capable of surviving in the market after this initial governmental support, but it is also believed
that the importance of regional support centres increased because experience has shown that
some tasks need to be provided at a national level, such as quality guidelines. Other forms of
support are in the long term more successful if it is provided at a regional level.
The sector is about 1000 farms now and we find that […] they are so professional that they can doit themselves without subsidies, perhaps money from the organization of agriculture, perhapsmoney from the rabobank but also money from the care farms, from the regional organization […]and I think that will be very good. (Representative of the Dutch Ministry for Agriculture)
Commercial and non-commercial regional support organisations and care farmer unions
developed in the last years, especially in the last five years and were partly initiated by
municipalities and progressed by care farmers themselves. Also entrepreneurs such as the head of
Landzijde saw potential in care farming and developed a regional support centre on a commercial
basis. Nevertheless, the government did not trigger the development of the regional organisations
as it was a bottom up process, which the government currently advocates, as from their point of
view it proved to be successful. Thus regional support centres inherit advantageous knowledge
about the region that is necessary in order to connect different stakeholders such as regional care
organisations and care farms etc.
Findings have shown that the National Support Centre somehow undertook the responsibility of
a coordinator, even if members of the board of this organisation were predominantly
representatives of care farmers. This support centre was on the one hand governmentally
subsidised but on the other hand its tasks were not only influenced by the government but also
by care farming experts and care farmers themselves. First employees of the National Support
Centre were experts from the care and the agricultural sector and pedagogies. Moreover, a close
connection between this National Support Centre and the Wageningen University that does
research in care farming, as well as with Omslag and other important stakeholders in terms of
care farming existed. In the past not only the importance of the National Support Centre was
evaluated in order to reach further subsidies but also experiments such as if care farms are
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suitable for certain client groups were accompanied intensively. If they proved to be successful,
the certain practice was distributed and continued respectively institutionalised.
We [Omslag] say we are an action foundation. We have ideas and organize that people get to know that. In several projects we develop the ideas. For example addicted people on care farms: Everyone
was afraid to combine that and we made a program on questions of the government to try what ispossible […] and we made an experiment and followed it and guided it and know it is an importantthing and already set up. (Coordinator of Omslag, February 2009)
The National Support Centre was seen to be important for a certain period of time but in the
meantime regional support organisations are understood to be more successful because the
experience in the past has shown that knowledge about regions and the commitment of regional
stakeholders is indispensable in order to successfully implement care farming. Adaptive planning
has shown that ten years of governmental subsidising of the National Support Centre is not
considered to be wasted money or time by its representatives nor by the government, rather that
the circumstances have changed and that care farming needs to be supported in a different way in
the present time.
Findings have shown that all eleven interviewed Dutch care farming experts (see 4.2.1) agree in
terms of high awareness and acceptance of care farming within this country, hence they partly call
it a hype and that the Dutch society is very much in favour with this new form of care and that
society knows quite well what care farming is. Also very familiar is the term zorgboerderijen . On theone hand there is a relatively high number of care farms, support centres at a national and
regional level and a variety of reports in different media about care farming, but on the other
hand this might increase the awareness but not necessarily increase the acceptance of this practice
within society. However, care farming experts mention that they perceive this practice to be
widely accepted in the Netherlands.
[…][N]ow everything is fine and now we are all positive and there is a lot of goodwill […] (Dutch
self-employed care farm adviser)
I think it is close to reaching the point of 100% acceptance. Care farming in terms of a new way of supporting people who have problems in their daily life. (Head of Landzijde)
Nevertheless, they also mention that care institutions tend to keep clients in their own institution
in order to keep the money. Most of them see an increasing problem in that the budget for the
care sector is decreasing which will lead to more competition between conventional care
institutions and care farms in the future.
I know that, I know for sure, because I was told that some bigger organizations keep the clientsthemselves because the clients are providing the money. (Dutch representative of a care institution)
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In order to compete with care institutions, the experts assume it to be important that the sector
professionalises, finds new client groups, for instance, elderly for 24hours care, and that the
connection and cooperation within the sector and with care institutions at a regional level
increases.
Both representatives of the Ministry for Agriculture and of Health, assume that care farming can
be a niche product only and that they indirectly want to support it. The latter is interested in
providing a range of different forms of care for clients who should get the chance to choose
which form of care they prefer, whereas the first wants to support the diversification of farms but
not care farming per se. Moreover, the Ministry for Health distinguishes between medical issues
and care issues and assumes that the latter offers high potential for care farming in the future.
The international coordinator for long-term care from the Netherlands encapsulated that incontrast to other European countries, the Dutch society asks less for certifications and
professionalisation in terms of long-term care. Thus it is more important to provide living places
worth living at.
What you mention about professionalization and things like that, we seem to think very little of thatbecause we have a kind of confidence in that kind of segments in the care sector and that is theissue it is not specifically but also related to care farming but also to general care (Representative of the Dutch Ministry of Health, international coordinator for long term care)
However, the Dutch Ministry of Health sees care farming as one form of care, whereas this is notthe case in Austria at the present time.
5.5.2 The Austrian development of care farming
In Austria a less experimental way is followed to consequently implement practices that prove to
be successful and to develop new rules for a new form of care. However existing laws need to be
followed and are hardly adapted. Until now no comparable organisation to the former Dutch
National Support Centre exists and no one has registered existing projects, provides information
about care farming for farmers and clients or care institutions, or developed quality guidelines for
care farming in general. In contrast to Dutch care farmers who predominantly offer working
therapy, Austria’s care farmers offer a range of different forms of care, such as garden- or animal
assisted therapy, elderly care and working therapy. Thus this diversity makes it much more
difficult to address all demands when establishing one support centre for care farming, which
might be an additional reason why Austria has not yet established such an organisation for general
care farming.
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However, when focusing on the development of animal assisted therapy and pedagogic within
this country, it can be stated that the ÖKL take the part of the initiator of first research projects
in order to prove health effects and to develop the form of therapy, and also how to train the
animals. The ÖKL and TAT received subsidies by the Ministry for Agriculture in order to
develop and offer an education program that was tested for four years (from 2003 to 2007).
Outcomes needed to be documented for and presented to the Ministry for Agriculture. In the
meantime an adapted education course that lasts about one year is offered and subsidised by the
Ministry for Agriculture. Representatives of the ÖKL not only realised first research projects but
also developed the education course, certification guidelines and negotiated with the Ministry for
Agriculture in order to get subsidies. Moreover, they raise awareness for this new form of care to
potential cooperation partners of animal assisted therapists.
The ÖKL is a non-commercial organisation but well known and accepted by representatives of
agricultural organisations, thus the ÖKL cannot be seen as an independent coordinator of
different stakeholders. Until now predominantly agricultural organisations are involved in the
development of animal assisted therapy, the Health Ministry has not been invited to cooperate
with the Ministry for Agriculture or to partly subsidise this new development. There were no
meetings in order to look for common visions and interests of all potential affected stakeholders,
while experts from ÖKL initiated the development of this strand of care at farms, rather than
care farming pioneers.
Professionalisation in order to make sure that not just anyone can offer animal assisted therapy
and pedagogic and that only high quality is offered is one of ÖKL’s main interests. Therefore
they also developed certification guidelines in order to evaluate farms, and ultimately to permit or
prohibit them to offer this form of care. Subsequently, a quantitative limitation is realised and up
until now only about forty people have attended the course for animal assisted therapy and
pedagogic and are allowed to offer this form of care. Moreover, not only a complementary
interdependence between different stakeholders, but also the high demand to professionalise are
specific for Austria’s political culture and become obvious from the statement below.
We (the ÖKL) developed a handbook about guidelines in order to allow care farmers to reachsubsidies when offering animal assisted therapy and we have to submit these guidelines to theMinistry for Agriculture but before we submit it we want to connect this aspect of reaching subsidies with the certification guidelines that we have developed because that is a lot of money.Farmers would reach for one morning 160 Euros and we want that only those farmers reachsubsidies that are certified.
On the one hand farmers really need a form of financial support in order to reach clients because
not enough clients are willing or able to pay for this form of care, but on the other hand the
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“correct” development of guidelines and the normal course of bureaucracy takes time and often
forces farmers to terminate care farming because of not having the necessary long breath.
Representatives of the ÖKL are socialised within a certain political culture and know that this
form of therapy can only become established when ensuring that well-educated farmers offer a
good quality of care. The Dutch National Support Centre also developed quality guidelines for
care farming that had high priority and was one of their first tasks fulfilled. But in contrast to the
Netherlands it seems to be much more necessary in Austria to prove the quality with a
certification and only to allow those official qualified farmers to practice that form of care and to
gain income by that.
Also the development of garden therapy within Austria shows the high importance of
professionalisation in order to establish a new form of therapy. An education program atuniversity level already exists, but in order to enhance its development in practice and to search
for common visions and interests of different stakeholders that are involved in this sector, no
central organisation that is regulated outside of the political arena is responsible for their
connection and coordination.
The situation of Perg (assisted living at the farm for elderly) also represents the expert controlled
system that does not adapt guidelines or laws, rather institutionalises a new form of care by
experiments that hinders the development of new forms of care or the diffusion of theinnovation. The pioneers from Perg have practiced care at the farm but needed to follow
conventional care guidelines, were burdened by the demanded education training that lasts 1000
hours and also by the requirement to offer care external to the farm in order to be allowed to
offer care at the farm, as well. The guidelines and requirements visualise the rigidity of the system
that did not allow the development of a new form of care, but rather hindered other potential
care farmers to imitate the pioneers.
We had many people from other federal states who asked us about the project and who wanted torealize such a project but I definitely know that it was not realized anywhere because it always failedbecause of public authorities and bureaucratic hurdles. (Group of Perg, care farmer, adopted, Olivia
J.)
On the one hand the Ministry for Agriculture supported the idea of elderly care at the farm and
delegated the ÖKL to develop a handbook about guidelines and preconditions for elderly care at
the farm after this first project was initiated by the regional union for general farmers and
practiced by about 10 pioneers. Nevertheless, no meetings external to the political arena were
organised in order to find common interests between the different stakeholders that were affectedby the development of care farming. There was also no evaluation about the pilot project in Perg
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in order to learn from it and to adapt requirements, laws and guidelines for elderly care at the
farm.
It failed because of the top, and also at the beginning they thought, yes just go through theeducation courses and after that let’s talk again and they just thought that we are not able to finishthe course successfully because that were 1000 hours […] (Group of Perg, care farmer, adopted,Elfi J.)
Austrian experts describe the awareness and acceptance of care farming as being rather low,
hence the term Soziale Landwirtschaft is not widely familiar in Austrian society. First of all care
farming is neither practiced very often nor very well known. It is also seldom discussed in the
media, as an expert from ÖKL mentions “there are only sometimes broadcasts about one single
care farm but a wider network is not becoming visible by that”. The experts that are supporting
care farming assume that there is a long way to go before the agricultural and health sectorreaches the necessary broader understanding and openness for combining care and farming. At
the moment the Ministry for Agriculture subsidises the education in animal assisted therapy and
pedagogic and does not only subsidise farmers but also health professionals that attend this
course. As already mentioned the Ministry for Health is not yet involved.
The acceptance of this practice is predominantly connected to the demand to professionalise in
Austria. A frequently asked question by journalists, but especially by representatives of traditional
care institutions, is about who takes the responsibility if farmers start to care for people withspecial needs. Assumptions and prejudices are that farmers and the state profit because the first
have a new income possibility and the latter could face decreasing costs for care tasks. Thus it is
criticised that this practice could mean doing something at the expense of clients. Not only
representatives of traditional care institutions ask for a professional education of care farmers but
also the attitude of those experts who very much support the idea of care farming reflect those
aspirations. Experts that want to support care farming and are representatives of research centres,
care professionals and members of the ÖKL share the opinion that an education programmeneeds to be initially developed and that care farms need a form of certification before the sector
should develop. Otherwise they assume that the risk for clients is too high and they know that
care farming can become established and accepted in Austria only through this course.
Those supporters of care farming assume that a central national coordination centre for care
farming will be needed in the near future in order to coordinate all interested farmers, care
institutions and potential clients etc. In contrast to Dutch experts they do not mention the
importance of coordination centres that are located at a regional level. A competition between the
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conventional care institutions and care farming is not perceived by Austrian care farming experts,
whereas this aspect might be influenced by the early stage of the development of this innovation.
In Austria everyone mounts the barricades when you are talking about therapy. Who is allowed todo that and who not? Indirectly this influenced the development of our education program apartfrom our own demand of quality. Who is allowed to offer therapy and you get a lot of critique [if you are not careful about distinguishing between care and therapy]. (Representatives of the ÖKL)
Certified farms need to be in every federal state because it needs to be ensured that they offer highquality. (Representative of a care institution that offers a form of animal assisted therapy)
The national differences in the development of care farming reflect the general practiced political
culture in both countries. Even if the bottom up process of care farming is not strategically
connected to plans by the Dutch government, it seems that different stakeholders were looking
for common visions and interests and that the development of care farming was enhanced by
experiments that were accompanied and institutionalised if they proved to be satisfactory. It
cannot be said that the trial and error practice is not practiced in Austria, it was for instance
followed by the ÖKL when it developed the education course for animal assisted therapy, but still
many indicators show that initiatives such as that in Perg where not evaluated in order to
implement those aspects that proved to be successful. In the Netherlands, the care farming sector
seems to be more dynamic than in Austria, which might be influenced by their rather
experimental way of dealing with this practice. There is also the demand to professionalise in the
Netherlands, although this is fairly current, since a lot of experiments have already been realised
and about 1000 care farms have been developed. In Austria the development is strongly
connected with the demand to professionalise and hindered by a rigid system that hardly adapts
care guidelines in order to enhance the development of care farming. It has been shown that
powerful people and organisations need to support the idea of care farming in order to start this
movement and to get a hearing. Although experts from the Netherlands also mention that care
farming is supported too much by the agricultural sector and too little by the health care sector,
we can still say that this fact exists to a larger extend in Austria. The Austrian Ministry for Agriculture has not involved people from the Ministry of Health in order to find common
interests and to support this new practice together.
This general difference in terms of the development of care farming is important context
information for the samples. In the next chapter I will focus on the respective case profiles of the
different care farmer groups, hence they are depicted in more detail in the following text.
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55..66 Case profiles
There is a high variety of clients in this study because Austrian and Dutch care farming projects
often offer mixed client groups. In the present study, the client group includes long-term
unemployed, elderly, physically and mentally disabled and adolescents with problems to integrate
in society. Farmers’ tasks within a care farming project were also diverse. With regard to that, the
following types of care farming projects were investigated:
(Type 1) Cooperation between a couple: One member of the couple is a professional nurse or
social pedagogue etc. and predominantly fulfils care farming-relevant pedagogical or care tasks, while the other is a professional farmer and predominantly fulfils agricultural duties.
(Type 2) All in one: Some interviewees were responsible for and also professionals in care and
farm chores and managed both mainly on their own. A professional farmer is for instance also a
professional social pedagogue with additional education in animal assisted therapy. In this case
the farmer trains the animal for therapy but also offers therapy with clients.
(Type 3) External cooperation with professionals: Finally, cooperation between professional
farmers and health care or social organisations or self-employed professionals in this field can be
mentioned as a third type. Farmers offer their agricultural surrounding or their animals for care
farming relevant trainings. Farmers’ duties are respectively to train their animals for animal
assisted therapy and to provide disability friendly areas at the farm. Social organisations like
Caritas have a formal or informal agreement and visit the farm with a particular client group and
consume the special offer of that care farm, whereas for instance a farm-extern therapist or
pedagogue is responsible for the social/care tasks.
5.6.1 Socio demographic and business related
characteristics of the case profiles
The focus is initially on facts about sociodemographic and business related characteristics of the
sample. The aim of the following chapter is to provide the reader with additional knowledge
about the investigated cases in order to epitomise a fuller picture about the sample of this study.
Therefore the context information about the farming and care business and about the actors who
start up this project is illustrated below.
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About one third of the care farms within this sample are farming businesses that practice animal
husbandry, 10% have an arable farming business with animal husbandry and in 5% of sampled
care farms, both arable farming and horticulture is practiced. Care farming is provided by organic
(44%) and conventional (56%) farmers and as the graphics below indicate, farms are rather small,
while Dutch farms are typically a lot larger. About 45% of the farmers within this sample have 1-
20 hectares and about 40% have 20-40 hectares. The rest of this sample manages a farm with a
maximum size of 85 hectares. One possible explanation could be that especially farmers with a
small business tend towards multifunctional agriculture in order to obtain additional income. A
further explanation could be that people who are not originally coming from the farming but
from the care business tend to buy a small farm in order to offer care. Nevertheless, 75% of the
farmers within this sample mention that they receive their principal income through care farming,
while 25% offer care at their farm simply for additional income.
Size of care farms [%]
1 - 20 ha 45,01
21 - 40 ha 41,09
41 - 60 ha 12,09
61 - 85 ha 3,02
Table 9: Size of care farms within the sample in hectare.
The forms of care offered at farms within this sample can be categorised as day care (71%) in
form of working therapy (64%) that is predominantly provided by Dutch care farmers and 24
hours care (22%) for elderly (19%) and day care in order to provide animal assisted therapy and
pedagogic (16%) which is predominantly the case in Austria.
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0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Form of care
[ % ]
Day care
24 hours care24hours care and day care
Working therapy
Elderly care
Animal assisted therapy
Figure 4: Forms of care within this sample in percent. [N=32]
Beside context information about the (care) farming business, it is interesting to focus on care
farmers’ education, their age and gender (illustrated below). About two thirds of this sample are
female and one third is male interview partners. About 23% are between 25 and 35 years old,
about 16% are between 36 and 45 years old, and 13% are between 56 and 65 years old. Care
farming is a challenging job that demands high social and emotional competence, which could be
one explanation for the largest number of people (48%) being between 46 and 55 years old.
Age [%]
25-35 22,58
36-45 16,12
46-55 48,38
56-65 12,09
Table 10: Age of care farmers within this sample in percent.
Nearly half of the investigated care farmers attended a vocational school with mid-level, followed
by about 20% who attended a vocational school with higher education, about 10% have a
university degree and 10% underwent an apprenticeship. Only one person of the sample has a
high school degree and two a compulsory school degree only. This short illustration about the
form of farming and care business and about socio demographic data of the care farmer of this
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study provides the reader with additional knowledge in order to increase the understanding about
the context of the interview partners.
5.6.2 Categorisation and characteristics of groups of carefarmers in terms of social capital
The sample can be categorised in five groups that are diverse in terms of the group social capital
(see 8.5). Cases from Austria belong either to the “group of the independent”, the “group of
Perg” or the “group of animal assisted therapy”. The independent were not a member of a
particular care farming union on a regional or national level and predominantly did not have
informal relationships to other care farmers, hence they are not a group per se, rather clustered in
this study. The group of Perg have founded a regional union, like “care farmers support care
farmers” whereby the group of animal assisted therapy knew each other from attending the same
education programme but did not have much or regular contact with each other after the
education course was finished. Cases within this sample from the Netherlands either belong to
the commercial regional care farming support organisation named Landzijde, which provides
farmers with many different forms of support, or they belong to the non-commercial care
farming organisation from Utrecht that is called VUZB. VUZB was founded and is organized by
care farmers to support each other when starting up a care farm. Most of Landzijde and VUZB
members also have a membership to the national Green Care Association or National Support
Centre, which means they were supported on a regional but also national level. The different
characteristics of each group are presented below.
5.6.2.1 Independent Austrian Care Farms
Some interviewees had no membership to a special care farming association or organisation. They
were pioneers in the most original form, whereby interviewees from this group range from
offering a form of animal assisted therapy to elderly care to offering meaningful work for people
with special needs. Most of them did not even have contact to other care farmers or do not know
that someone else provides similar tasks.
Interviewer: Did you visit or even know other care farms before you started up yours?Care farmer: (Laughs) No. (Group of independent, care farmer, terminated, Claudia C.)
Interviewer: Do you know other people who offer care at their farm?
Care farmer: ... ... ...Interviewer: Well, any acquaintances who focused also on that connection between agriculture and
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care?Care farmer: No, not the combination with the social. (Group of independent, care farmer,adopted, Doris Q.)
All of them are members of LWK but do have different professional backgrounds (most of them
are double qualified in social and agricultural tasks). They offer different forms of care todifferent client groups and come from different regions. They also share in common that they are
not affiliated with a care farmer group, are not supported by that and are not members of the
same education course, thus they are not a group per se. There is also no existing group social
capital. Through this group, a maximum contrast is offered and allows insights in how care
farmers cope with problems and challenges without group social capital.
5.6.2.2 The Group of Perg in AustriaSome important aspects about this group are already explained in chapter 5.5.2. One member of
the regional Landwirtschaftskammer7 (LWK) in Perg initiated the pilot project “assisted living at a
farm” for elderly in 1996 as a new income possibility for farmers. About ten farmers participated,
mainly female farmers graduated in elderly care, which means they attended a one-year course
together with about 1000 hours of education. All participants invested in apartments for elderly,
with most of them built two disability friendly apartments. The LWK organised the course that
was organisationally oriented on farmer’s needs, for example considering harvest time, and chosea locality with a short distance for all participants. Further negotiation with cooperation partners,
like the Red Cross, were realised by members of the care farmer group and of the LWK. Firstly,
only the group of care farmers existed as a group with one spokesman, but later an official
regional union was founded (in 1999). The group of care farmers is democratically organised and
supports each other, distributes relevant information and questions of interested clients to all
members. Farmers advertise together but still everyone is individually responsible to acquire
clients. Interviewees of this group are members of the union and have adopted or already
terminated care farming.
The care farmers of this group exchange information about experiences in terms of problems and
challenges perceived when developing and stabilising the new practice. They went through this
process together at the same time and also meet each other continually at their farms roughly
every second month and democratically set the agenda of the meetings themselves. By
7 Short LWK is represented via regional organizations under the umbrella of the Austrian Federation of Agriculture.
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considering the predefined indicators for intra-group communication, the social capital of this
group is very high. Moreover, group identity is produced through homogeneity in terms of the
form of care offered at the farm, meaning all of them offer assisted living (care tasks) for elderly
(same client group) at the farm (24hours care) and have in the meantime a long history of
interactions (10 years). This union presents itself through a common homepage and formulates
common future aims not only in terms of the group but also in a wider sense in terms of care
farming, hence members highly identify with the group.
There is a working group in another region that thinks about developing a similar project and they contacted us because of that and we will discuss within the union if our union should becomesomething like an umbrella organisation for other regional groups because I think it does not makesense if every region founds a separated union for assisted living at the farm and then they need tocontact us because of questions. My future vision would be that we have in every federal state of
Austria a superior union and that members can meet each other regularly and that someone can useour experiences as basis. Nothing will be easier than distributing what we know because we havebeen hitting our heads against a brick wall for then years. (Group of Perg, care farmer, adopted, Elfi
J.)
Also the solidarity of this group is very high, as they come from the same region and are a
member of the LWK, which was quite important as initiator of the project and supporter of the
group when developing the new practice. They also attended the same education course at the
same time which lasted one year and was very intense in terms of invested time and the level of
education. The number of individuals in the group is small but its density is very high because
everyone knows each other very well. The meetings are used in order to deal with occurring
problems and to do common tasks such as advertising, preparing for negotiations and networking
with cooperation partners or public authorities etc.
5.6.2.3 Group of animal assisted therapy (AAT) and pedagogic
(AAP) in Austria
Some details about AAT are already explained above (see 5.5.2). The project animal assisted
therapy started with research by one innovative member of ÖKL who later initiated a pilot
project for animal assisted therapy (AAT) and pedagogic (AAP) with farm animals and developed
the education programme. At the beginning, education was subsidised by the
Landwirtschaftsministerium to about 83%. Moreover, ÖKL negotiates with the
Landwirtschaftsministerium about farmers’ daily wages when offering animal assisted therapy and if
ÖKL certifies them. ÖKL is connected with important contact partners within the agricultural
sector and the national and international scientific group regarding to care farming. Thisorganisation informs possible cooperation partners of care farmers to increase the acceptance of
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animal assisted therapy and has educated about 40 care farmers until yet. Certification and quality
management is most important for them. Interviewees from the group of AAT/AAP know each
other because they attended an education program together that lasted about one year (about 200
hours) but they only met regularly during that education course and are not a member of an
official union of care farmers. They do not organise common meetings to exchange information
or to work together on group issues, where it would be possible to exchange information about
experiences during the course. “I simply told the colleagues during the presentations and the
education course about my experiences.” (Group of AAT/AAP, care farmer, Irma F., adopted)
Interviewees from this group attended the pilot project or/and the further education programme
in animal assisted therapy. Communication within the group can be characterised as being
observational, rather than being based on the exchange of information. They become trained as
an animal assisted therapist or pedagogic or assistant based in that field with the clearly defined
education programme. The regularly meetings are in functional rooms rather than at the farms,
and are run over the period of about one year for members who have participated in the
education course. Although in general, farmers do not have regular contact with each other
afterwards. The intra-group communication can in this respect be seen as rather low, hence this
form of social capital is low.
Interviewee: And do you have regular contact to your colleagues from the education course?
Care farmer: Yes one member contacted me because of a question in terms of the goats and withanother member I wrote the thesis together but she offers animal assisted therapy to differentclients and her care farm is differently organised and so we just told each other about ourexperiences but except of that there is no one else from the course with whom I am in contact.(Group of AAT/AAP, care farmer, adopted, Irma F.)
Nevertheless, members attended the same education course in the same time and offer the same
form of day-care at their farms, but group identity can hardly become developed, as members
have a different professional background, some are professional therapists or pedagogies and
farmers, while some simply just farmers, meaning they only partly have the same client group.
Further indicators for a low group identity are that they do not present themselves through a
common homepage and that there are also no common aims mentioned within the group.
Strongly connected to that, also group solidarity is less obvious because all of them only share in
order to be a member of the education course and of the LWK, and although they know each
other they do not fulfil common tasks such as advertising or negotiating etc. with relevant
cooperation partners or institutions.
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5.6.2.4 Group of VUZB (“Vereniging Utrechtse Zorgboeren”) in
the Netherlands
The VUZB is a non-commercial association of green care farmers in Utrecht, Holland. Originally,
the region of Utrecht supported an initiative to enhance care farming and employed two people
for about two years from another region that had knowledge about how to enhance care farming.
One outcome of this initiative was that VUZB was founded as a non-hierarchical organised union
of care farmers. About five years ago VUZB became an official organisation and in the present
time counts about 30 members. Members offer working therapy at their farm, meaning day care
for a mixed client group, all of them come from the region of Utrecht and some of them are also
members of the union for general farmers (LTO8 ). The members have to pay 125 Euro per year
and work for group issues in one of four working groups. The working groups are responsible forpublic relations, the regional adaption of already elaborated quality guidelines by the National
Support Centre, networking with similar associations of other regions and with care organisations
and serving information about how to start up a care farm. Financial questions are centrally
organised, the association organises a study club five times a year where all members meet each
other at their care farms and exchange ideas and their experiences in terms of care farming.
Current problems are discussed, such as insurance and quality standards, but also knowledge and
information is offered to all members through these meetings. Most farmers acquire their
cooperation partners and clients themselves. VUZB addresses rather new care farmers than those
who have already been practicing for a long time. Everyone who wants to start and to become a
member of the VUZB needs to attend an introduction course (about two days) about how to be a
care farmer. On the one hand it is not aimed at becoming a commercial and tightly organised
association like Landzijde, but on the other hand they do not exclude it as a possibility to develop
in this direction. They can presently distinguish themselves from Landzijde insofar as they do not
undertake as much responsibilities for farmers. VUZB says that their members want to stay
responsible for themselves and they do not want to give up their autonomy. Quality is seen as
important and members need to obey the universal valid criteria of quality. At the present time
the association calls itself a hobby organisation but it has also discussed demanding financial
payment when consulting new care farmers and to organise them better. Interviewees who were
members of this group contacted VUZB by themselves to gather information about how to start
8 LTO Nederland (Land- en Tuinbouw Organisatie) is the Dutch Federation of Agriculture and Horticulture, an
entrepreneurial and employers’ organisation.
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up a care farm and have either adopted or terminated care farming. Considering the group social
capital one can say that in terms of intra-group communication this group of farmers exchanges
relevant information between each other rather than observing information from someone else,
they meet continually about five times a year directly at their farms, which also provide visual
information about how to be a care farmer, and also set the agenda of these meetings themselves.
Moreover, this group exchanges information about how to start up a care farm and about
perceived problems and challenges and experiences in terms of how to deal with clients and how
to adopt the farm in order to offer care. By applying these indicators in order to define the
amount of social capital in terms of intra-group communication, the result shows that this group
obtains high group social capital. The second form of social capital that is applied in this work is
group identity, whereby this increases the higher the homogeneity within the group in terms of
their form of offered care (care tasks, 24hours care or day care, client group) and with the history
of interactions. In this respect we can say all members of the group of VUZB offer working
therapy to clients during the day, while only having partly the same client group, as client groups
are generally mixed in the Netherlands. All current members of the group, which has existed for
more than five years, democratically influences the development of common future aims, and the
group presents itself as a group through a common homepage.
Interviewer: And what expectations do you have in terms of VUZB?
Care farmer: A few days ago we received a questionnaire from VUZB about how we (the membersof VUZB) would like to develop the union and what expectations we have regarding to that. Thetopics could become deeper in my point of view, more directed. More about target groups, autism,
ADHD is also very relevant at the moment and about that they could provide us with more detailedknowledge. And I also mentioned in this questionnaire, hey, offer courses, provide orientation on
what is possible as a care farmer […]. (Group of VUZB, care farmer, adopted, Emma G.)
Altogether, the group identity in the case of VUZB is measured as medium when applying the
indicators above. Group identity is a precondition for group solidarity because it enables
cooperation in contrast to the first, the latter means advocating for common aims in order to be
solidary. By considering the indicators for solidarity, one can say that members of VUZBsometimes share more than one role with each other, meaning all of them are coming from the
same region, which is often a precondition for continual meetings or increases the number of
members who know each other (network density). Some shared the same education course and
are also a member of the union for general farms besides being a member of VUZB, which
increases possible contact points in order to support each other. Solidarity is visible in terms of
given support when a member wants to start up a care farm but also in terms of public relations,
networking and negotiating with other relevant organisations and in terms of adapting national
guidelines of quality standards, thus the group solidarity is rather high.
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Yes, we knocked at their door in order to reach information about how we could start care farming because you have to start somewhere and that was a well known address. […] and they built
working groups for public relations and the financial administration etc. […] (Group of VUZB, carefarmer, terminated, Sven and Alida de I.)
5.6.2.5 The group of Landzijde in the Netherlands
Landzijde is a commercial organisation in the region of Amsterdam that supports care farming.
Two people who are care farmers themselves today founded the organisation in 2003. In the
meantime the organisation has about 12 employees, an office in the city centre of Purmerend
(North-Holland) and counts about 100 members who pay 75 Euros per year for their
membership but also pay part of their income (about 20%) when clients who were conciliated
through Landzijde visit the farm. Landzijde does not only offer a common homepage but also
recruit care farmers and also care institutions or clients directly. Moreover, it negotiates with
ministries and municipalities and is highly interconnected with all relevant addresses in terms of
care farming. Besides offering a strong brand, Landzijde matches clients to care farms, develops
care programs for clients and does the booking of care programs, arranges all settlements for
farmers, informs farmers about how to start up a care farm, is a contact partner for care farmers
regardless if they start up or have already practiced care farming for a long time, and advertises
care farming. Landzijde organises meetings for all members four times a year where presentations
are also held by care professionals to educate farmers, for instance about clients diagnosis.Nevertheless, the head of this organisation believes that a farmer should predominantly stay a
farmer and not become a care professional. A precondition for care farmers to become a member
of Landzijde is that the safety at the farm is ensured and farmers should have a special insurance.
The head of Landzijde appreciates it if farmers attend the meetings four times a year and if
farmers attend further education in terms of care farming. But until now farmers do not have to
attend special education courses in order to offer care at their farm.
Interviewee: Do farmers have to attend education courses if they want to become a member of Landzijde?Head of Landzijde: Not yet, it is a must to visit the regional studies in the region, which areorganized by our regional coordinator.Interviewee: four evenings a year, is it that what you mean?Head of Landzijde: Four times a year, yes, and we promote, officially from school # state schooland middle class school MAO 4 level, that is below high education level […]. About 22, 26, 48 of our farmers do or have done this school programme, it is not, it is an official school,Interviewee: So do you recommend that farmers should attend this higher education training?Head of Landzijde: I would recommend it yes.
It is a subjective decision of Landzijde whether farmers become members of this organisation
because Landzijde adjudges them as having a “warm heart for other people” (Head of Landzijde,
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February 2009) or not. Members of Landzijde are from the region of Amsterdam, some of them
are members of LTO and they offer day-care, working therapy, for a mixed client group.
Interviewees were members of Landzijde who either adopted or already terminated care farming
and Landzijde recruited nearly all of them.
Hetty [regional coordinator from Landzijde] is the pacemaker. She asked us many times, like wehave those clients, is that someone for you? And she doesn’t make that with us only but asks alsoother farmers. And once you don’t say no and then you try it. (Group of Landzijde, care farmer,adopted, Henk K.)
The intra-group communication as one form of social capital is rather low because farmers rather
observe information when participating in the (evening) study course four times a year and the
commercial organisation sets the agenda of those meetings, not the farmers themselves. In
addition to the fact that farmers observe information from (health) experts about diseases etc.they also have the possibility to exchange information about their experiences in terms of
problems and challenges with clients and adapting the farm etc. in this setting, although they miss
visual information about how the care farms of others look like, as meetings are in functional
rooms and not at their farms. Landzijde members receive initial information about how to start
up a care farm predominantly by employees of the organisation and less by members of the
group. The identity of the group is also medium because they share being a member of Landzijde,
of the region, offering day-care, more accurately, working therapy to clients but only partly have
the same client group. These organisations members have generally not attended the same
education course at the same time and do have a history of interactions through the above-
mentioned meetings, over a maximum of about 7 years. In contrast to VUZB, not the group itself
but the organisation of Landzijde presents itself through a homepage and members are listed
there but this does not necessarily increase group-identity. “And even if your care farm is
presented on their website it is still advertisement for your own farm.” Group of Landzijde, care
farmer, terminated, Finn and Jacoba B.) The organisation is less democratically than hierarchically
organised and as a consequence there are no common aims within the group and also no
possibilities for members to influence the direction of future goals of that organisation.
But I have not found out yet how a care farmer („zorgboeren“) can influence Landzijde that issomething I do not know…business council is not the right term but, good, that is something Ineed to find out, I would appreciate to reach more information about Landzijde. (Group of Landzijde, care farmer, adopted, Orlando and Noa U.)
Not surprisingly it was shown that the solidarity within the group could not develop far. Members
of Landzijde come from the same region (Amsterdam) but are only partly a member of the union
for general farmers or of the same education course. On the one hand there are about one
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hundred members in the group but care farmers only partly know each other (density of the
network). Because receiving all services such as necessary information from Landzijde in order to
start and stabilise this new practice, and the fact that the organization acquires its own clients, the
necessity to advertise, to negotiate and to network with other organisations and possible
cooperation partners decreases. Not the group of farmers themselves but Landzijde offers
support to the group, which is a further indicator for low group-solidarity.
Considering the intra-group communication, group identity and group solidarity the social capital
on a group level differs between the samples of this research. The group of Landzijde in the
Netherlands and that of AAT/AAP in Austria have a similar amount of group social capital and
the group of Perg in Austria and of VUZB in the Netherlands are similar in kind. In terms of the
intra-group communication it is shown that the group of Perg and VUZB have a similar amount, which is much higher than that of Landzijde and AAT/AAP members, meaning the exchange of
information between farmers is less possible in the latter. The group of Perg shows the highest
amount in terms of group identity, whereas members of VUZB, Landzijde and AAT/AAP are
similar in kind. Group solidarity is strongly shown by members of Perg, closely followed by
members of VUZB, whereas Landzijde and AAT/AAP members are connected less strongly and
show the lowest amount in terms of that form of social capital. Austrian’s independent care
farmers are in reality not a group at all, they do not know each other and develop their care
farming project independent from each other, therefore it is obvious that they do not have a
group social capital. They share in common that they are not members of a care farming
organisation or union and that they organise everything by themselves in order to develop the
project. The sample of the “independent” is very interesting in order to visualise the influence of
group social capital because they offer the maximal contrast to the other samples.
In the following chapters the above-mentioned groups with a varying amount of group social
capital are discussed in terms of how they go through the different ideal-typical periods of the
innovation and which forms of support they obtain and need.
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6
THE INNOVATIONPROCESS,
CHARACTERISTICS AND
NEEDS FROM CARE
FARMERS’ PERSPECTIVE
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66..11 Characteristics of the initiation
period
The aim of the following chapter is to focus on the beginning of an innovation. In van de Vens`
(1999) theory it is assumed that this initiation period contains characteristics such as a certain
prehistory that leads to the further development of an innovation, but also motifs and initial
triggers that initiate it. Besides illustrating findings in terms of those characteristics, the purpose
here is to provide information about forms of support and functions of social capital that areobtained in the beginning of an innovation in order to subsequently find out how this influenced
the further progress. By choosing this way of illustration, the working hypotheses one and two
(see 3.4) are considered partly, circumscribed by focusing on the first period of the innovation
only, meaning the initiation period that disembogues into the developmental period as soon as
someone decides to start up a care farm.
6.1.1 Prehistories and motifs for starting up a care farm
Findings have shown that there are commonalities in all investigated cases from Austria and the
Netherlands in the initiation period. All interviewees offer care at the farm in order to reach
primary or additional income, but are not only economically motivated to offer this special form
of care. The motivation for care farming is predominantly driven by economical needs, by the
whish to find possibilities to combine working as a caregiver and fulfilling perceived obligations
in terms of family and farming tasks, or by the wish to offer the non-traditional form of care at a
farm. But in all cases it is a combination of economical needs and certain personal circumstances,meaning a life stage in which someone is responsible to care for one’s own children, in which the
chance or obligation to work at a farm and a dissatisfaction with one’s own situation is perceived,
which makes reorganisation necessary.
Those care farmers who originally come from the agricultural field either experienced
diseases/sickness themselves or are related/strongly connected to people who have had disease
or sickness. As a result of this experience not only an interest in social tasks developed but also
the awareness to be able to deal with these tasks were important for the further development of
the innovation. In the past they had already cared for people with whom they are strongly
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connected, for instance, close relatives or neighbors. This personal experience is connected to a
strong commitment to one’s own farm and that farmers are often forced to find new income
possibilities in order to maintain their farm, whereby care farming is started because of the
expectation to reach additional income through care tasks on the farm. In the case of original
farmers who start to offer care at their farm, they are initially triggered by economical pressure,
for instance, the BSE crisis or the fact that Austria becaming an EU-member state lead to low
food prices, consequently forcing farmers to find new income possibilities.
Yes it started ten years ago that we had to find new income possibilities because we did not reachenough income by food production only. (Group of Perg, care farmer, adopted, Olivia J.)
And then there was also that Austria became a member of the EU and then we were anxious andgot the feeling that we have to find a second income possibility. (Group of Perg, care farmer,
adopted, Olga Z.)
Care farmers who originally were in the social or health sector, for instance being a professional
social pedagogic, nurse, social worker etc. and predominantly inherit a farm from their parents or
through marring with a farmer, are also forced to find new income possibilities for their farm but
predominantly want to combine their profession as a caregiver with the obligations that are
perceived from the farming business. So on the one hand they want to practice their profession,
but on the other hand they have obligations such as household chores, caring for one’s own
children, working at the farm etc. As a result of the combination of both, care farming starts to be
practiced.
Renate Q. is a professional nurse, loves her job and identifies herself rather as a caregiver than as afarmer, but she married a farmer. Because of problems with her parents in law Renate and herhusband lived about 1hour by car away from the farm. Both, Renate and her husband worked off the farm but her husband commuted daily and worked additionally on the farm for more than 10years. This double burden and the fact that their children got older forced them to make a decisionabout how to combine her husband’s strong commitment to the farm and her wish to work as anurse and to be independent from her parents in law. They started to offer care and assisted living at the farm, offer this 24hours care for about 14 people, have employees and manage this business
together. (Group of independent, care farmer, adopted, Renate Q.)
Claudia C. inherits the farming business from her parents but her husband predominantly undertakes the farming tasks and Claudia decides to become a professional social worker after hermaternity leave. After finishing this education program she obtains the offer from her employer tostart up an outpost at the farm, like a sheltered workshop at the farm for psychological illadolescents. She accepts this offer because of the possibility to care for her children and to work asa social worker. (Group of independent, care farmer, terminated, Claudia C.)
Additonally, there are care farmers who are originally trained in care tasks and practice care
farming because they wish to become a farmer in order to offer this special form of care. They
assume that care offered at a farm is very fruitful for their clients but offering a traditional formof care only does not satisfy them. In their point of view the working environment at the farm
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offers particularly meaningful work or, for instance, animal assisted therapy with farm animals
seems to them to be the best form of therapy for their clients and this fact motivates them to
start a care farm. They identify themselves also as a farmer and often invest a lot of energy and
money in order to buy a farm and to become a farmer. Subsequently they also want to reach
additional or primary income through care farming.
Care farmers either predominantly come from the farming business but have personal experience
with diseases and forms of care or they are professional caregivers and in a certain stage of their
life where there is a possibility to connect care tasks with farming tasks. All interviewees try to
reach additional or primary income through care offered at the farm. Before someone can
practice care farming, the information about this form of care needs to be obtained or the idea
needs to be developed, whereby findings have shown that weak and strong ties undertake adifferent role at the beginning of the new practice.
6.1.2 Obtained and needed forms of support and of social
capital
Once someone becomes aware of this new practice and reaches information about certain care
farming initiatives, this interest needs to be discussed and further information about how thispractice may look in reality need to be obtained. Therefore, later care farmers mention certain
actors to be important, some of them are only aquaintainces, others are close family members,
but all of them play an important role within this period of innovation as it is displayed in the
network diagram below.
The following network diagram demonstrates findings from all investigated groups about
obtained forms of support that is provided by certain actors during the initiation period and
perceived by a care farmer to be of varying importance. Ego in the pentagon represents in thiscase 32 care farmers, is located in the centre of the diagram and is connected with certain actors
through lines, the latter are colored and have different line symbols in order to identify to which
group the supporters belong. The line end is labelled, so that first of all the actor is perceived to
be more or less important, for instance, the care farmer union or the family is emphasised by that.
Besides the name of the supporter, the form of support that is provided by this actor is also
illustrated after the colon. For instance care farmer union: inf at the end of a green line that ends
in the second circle means that the care farmer union provides farmers who are a member of the
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Group of Perg with information related support and is perceived by those care farmers to be
important in the initiation period.
The three concentric circles represent perceived importance of actors to care farmers, respectively
the form of support, similar to the network diagram that was used for data collection. Those
actors that are located in the first circle, meaning those who have the shortest distance between
ego and the supporters, are perceived to be very important in that period of time. Perceived to be
important are supporters that are located in the second circle and relevant if they are located in the
third circle. The different groups are presented distinctly in order to emphasise the similarities
within the findings that occurred in terms of forms of support and providers across the
investigated groups.
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Figure 5: The perceived importance of supporters and of forms of support by care farmers during the
initiation period. [N=32]
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In all groups the family member’s esteem support is of most importance, while actors such as the
organisation of Landzijde, the general union for farmers or weak ties are important because they
providing care farmers with relevant information about this new practice. In general, weak ties are
people a care farmer meets only occasionally and who until that time transfer the first information
about care farming or care farming relevant initiatives. In the case of the group of VUZB, care
institutions also tend to motivate farmers through certain initiatives that lead farmers to consider
starting up a care farm and are perceived to be relevant because of that. However, this initial
motivator for later Landzijde members is typically the commercial group of Landzijde. If certain
well-known organisations, such as the union for general farmers in Perg, support this idea of care
farming, they are also perceived as important informants by farmers in the initial stage of theinnovation. Already practising care farmers are perceived to be relevant because they later provide
the care farmer with practical knowledge. Orientation about this new practice is also increased
through visiting already existing care farms. In summary, esteem support by family members and
the information about the existence of care farming and about how this practice can look in
reality are perceived as at least relevant by care farmers. Depicting results from the qualitative
analysis in detail will complement this rather quantitative interpretation of the network diagram
above.
In all cases the initiation relevant information about the existence of care farming organisations,
education programs, certain care farming projects within a region or the first information about
the existence of this form of care per se is not provided by people a care farmer meets or
someone they are emotionally strongly connected with, but by people whom the care farmer
meets only occasionally or by communication media such as the internet, newspaper or TV, for
instance.
IP: I met that person who told me that he attends an orientation course “Landbau and care” and Ithought I have to do that, too.I: Who told you about it?IP: Yes, someone whom I know by accident. Just so, I am not sure, maybe we have talked about itin the supermarket (Group of VUZB, care farmer, adopted, Isa C.)
Who was important at the beginning? Well that was the media, the press and by hearsay [we foundout that care farming exists]. (Group of Landzijde, care farmer, terminated, Finn and Jakoba B.)
Highly important for care farmers further deliberations in terms of care farming is in most cases
an initiative from a certain organisation, in the case of Perg for instance a member of the union
for general farmers had the idea about assisted living at the farm for elderly as an additional
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income possibility for farmers and initiated information meetings and excursions to care farms
from other regions. It was quite important that the union for general farmers supported and
initiated this idea because it increased farmers’ acceptance and serious consideration in terms of
care farming, as no member of the group of Perg did know or think about offering care
professionally at their farm before. In the case of VUZB, this role was undertaken by the
municipality because it financed two care farming experts from another region for about two
years in order to support the development of care farming in Utrecht, from which the union of
VUZB developed. The fact that a pilot project in terms of animal assisted therapy and pedagogic
was already organised through the ÖKL, an approved organisation that is, amongst other things,
responsible for enhancing innovations in order to maintain rural regions, was likewise important
for the members of AAT and AAP to become aware of this form of profession and to consider
starting with this new practice. A central contact point and contact partner existed in this respect,
with the exception of Austria’s independent care farmers, in all cases, which was highly important
for the distribution of information about care farming as a profession. Moreover, even if the first
information about care farming is generally transferred by weak ties, farmers’ awareness about it
and the chance that they actually start with this practice is increased if respected and well-known
organisations or institutions support it and in this respect value it as positive. In the case of the
group of Landzijde, the situation is similar because the commercial organisation of Landzijde
distributes the information about care farming, but beyond that they purposefully increase thenumber of their members by recruiting farmers. In contrast to members from Perg, in the cases
of VUZB or AAT/AAP, the farmer is not required to do the first step in order to gain
information, rather the Landzijde. Landzijde members are often less under pressure to reorganise
their professional situation but it suits them to offer care at their farm instantly when Landzijde
contacts them and tries to recruit them.
[The regional coordinator from Landzijde] is the pacemaker. She asked us many times, like we havethose clients, is that someone for you? And she doesn’t make that with us only but asks also otherfarmers. And once you don’t say no and than you try it. (Group of Landzijde, care farmer, adopted,Henk K.)
In contrast to that, Austria’s independents feel more under pressure and need to become more
active in order to reorganise there professional situation, hence private and professional
circumstances lead them to start up a care farm at certain points in time. They do not have one
contact point or well-known and accepted institutions or organisations that supports care
farming, infact they are often not aware that others also practice a similar form of care at the
farm. This shows that the development of care farming is also possible without central contactpoints or well-known and accepted distributers of the idea. Still it is less likely that a high number
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of people become aware of this possibility simply due to independent need to be creative in order
to find a new form of care for new income possibilities.
Findings have shown that forms of support and of social capital that are important in the
initiation period are information-related support and intra-group communication, because the
information about the existence of care farming as a profession and about relevant initiatives
needs to be transferred to potential care farmers. Predominantly weak ties bring this new practice
in the field of vision and allow those who are interested to deliberate if they want to adapt it or
not. Moreover, if potential care farmers are introduced to this topic through accepted and well-
known institutions or organisations, it is more likely that potential care farmers consider this
practice as valuable. Nevertheless, relevant information that increases orientation about this new
practice is predominantly provided by the contact to other care farmers. Excursions to or moviesabout other care farms are important resources in this period because they allow reaching a
broader understanding about the practice and allow the development of more realistic
perceptions and estimations in terms of care farming.
We saw different care farms with different clients and it was possible to find out how I want torealize my care farm and for what clients I want to offer care. (Group of Perg, care farmer, adopted,
Veronika K.)
And when the colleagues from the education course saw the movie they said, ultimately we see how
it looks like to work with clients at the farm in reality. Not only in theory but in reality, that was soimportant for them. (Group AAT/AAP, care farmer, adopted, Irma F.)
Meetings with others who are interested in care farming allow the development of a feeling of
belonging to a group of individuals who believe that this is a valuable and important practice,
which enhances further consideration in terms of care farming. Besides this rather loose social
companionship, the exchange of information between potential care farmers, (intra-group
communication) through for instance common excursions or introduction meetings with the
possibility for discussion, increases orientation of one’s own initial situation compared to that of
the others and takes into account advantages or disadvantages in terms of care farming perceived
by colleagues. Orientation increases because potential care farmers can align themselves by being
aware that others decide to adopt or to not adopt this new practice.
And through Landzijde we came in contact with other care farmers and then you get an idea aboutif those people are able to practie care farming I can do that, too. (Group of Landzijde, care farmer,adopted, Henk and Alida K.)
And then it was crystallised out who will really participate, meaning who will start up a care farm
and that was the most important thing. (Group of Perg, care farmer, adopted, Olivia J.)
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Beside other 40 farmers from our region I participated at this excursion to a care farm that wasinitiated by the LWK and I instantly liked this concept and in the second excursion only 20potential care farmers were left, so it was visible that the number of interested people decreased.(Group of Perg, care farmer, adopted, Elfi J.)
A care farming project can also be developed quite successfully without this initial contact with
other care farmers, although the contact is still identified as important for a broader
understanding and helps to develop more realistic consideration about this practice. However, all
this information is sparsely useful when the commitment of a potential care farmer’s close family
and friends is missing. Strong ties, especially a care farmer’s spouse and other family members
that also live at the farm play the most important role when it needs to be discussed if care
farming should be developed at the farm or not. The probability that someone decides to start a
care farm increases with the agreement and acceptance of close family members, whereby a
potential care farmer generally discusses the idea before and or after participating in excursions to
a care farm or in information evenings etc. This value related solidarity by close family members
can be approximately seen as a precondition for the further consideration about developing a care
farming project. Without this acceptance and shared positive valuation of care farming within the
family, especially of a care farmer’s spouse, it is unlikely that a farmer will develop the project.
Similar to the theoretical approach by van de Ven, a relevant prehistory, motives and initial
triggers were identified to be important in the initiation period that lasts as long as potential care
farmers have not decided to practice care farming. Weak and strong ties are important in this
period because only weak ties transfer information that is generally not known by people that are
part of someone’s close circle of family members and friends. Central and accepted organisations
or institutions such as the municipality, the union for general farmers or Landzijde play an
important role in order to distribute information about care farming and to initiate first
considerations whether to start with this new practice or not. This new information about care
farming and the idea to practice it can generally only be developed if close family members and
friends of a potential care farmer estimate it as worthwhile. Thus strong ties highly influence the
further process of innovation. Between the first information about the new practice and the
decision with family members to apply it, lies a further information related support that can be
provided by those who already practice care farming and those who are also interested in
practicing it. Imaginative power about this practice increases through excursions to and movies
about care farms (information-related support). The communication between potential care
farmers is a relevant resource or form of social capital in order to increase not only the knowledge
that care farming is valued as positive by others, but also the orientation about one’s own initialcircumstances, perceptions and estimations, compared to that of the others in terms of primarily
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received information. When considering the network diagram it can be said that all farmers
mention weak ties as relevant in order to receive first information about this new practice. Well-
known organisations that support the practice are also important for them in this period.
Additionally, family members are always understood as to be most important in this period in
order to decide whether to develop care farming or not.
In contrast to this quite unproblematic beginning of an innovation, the developmental period is
theoretically described as highly insecure and an intense time in which people that decide to
develop a care farming project have to make a lot of new contacts in order to obtain relevant
forms of support to cope with problems and challenges. The next chapter focuses on whether
findings prove this theoretical assumption and which forms of support are necessary in order to
cope with problems and challenges.
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66..22 Characteristics of the developmental
period The very intense and insecure time during the developmental period is characterised in theory by
the need to contact a high number of people in order to reach the form of support that is needed
to develop the new practice and to cope with problems and challenges. However, this is not the
case in the whole sample of this research when denoting the beginning of this period with a care
farmer’s decision to start up this project, and denoting the transition to the third period by the
fact that farmers start to offer care to clients at their farm. The following chapter provides
findings in terms of problems and challenges perceived within this period and with differences
across the cases and findings about supporters and obtained forms of support.
6.2.1 Perceived problems and challenges when developing
a care farming project
Findings show that two different clusters of problems and challenges occur in the developmental
period when farmers are developing and trying to stabilise a care farming project. Of first priority
is the demand to professionalise that is strongly connected to national differences. Another
priority is business questions that concern all five groups within the sample of this research.
Nevertheless, how farmers go through this second period and the extent of problems and
challenges they perceive is influenced by the national demand to professionalise and by the form
of care farming, meaning if the project addresses just a few or many clients, day or 24hours care
and if the project is started by traditional farmers or original care givers. In contrast toprofessional farmers that become a care giver, an original care giver often has the advantage of
already being in a network of care givers that can be useful for acquiring clients but also for the
understanding about how the farm needs to be adapted in order to care for clients etc.
Consequently the probability that problems and challenges occur in this respect therefore
decreases. Moreover, it is obvious that care farmers that offer day-care to only a few clients tend
to make fewer adaptions at the farm because the necessary amount of internal investments
decreases. For instance a separate canteen or toilet for clients is needed when the number of
clients is higher, hence the likelihood that new problems and challenges about how to adapt a
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farm decreases. Nevertheless, farmers predominantly need to adapt the farm partly in a way that it
is disability friendly. If farmers offer 24hours care, a lot more preconditions need to be followed
and a place to live or to stay overnight needs to be provided by the care farmer. So the fact of
how care farming is practiced influences the occurrence of problems and challenges, while also
being influenced by the national demand to professionalise.
It can be said, that Austrian care farmers indeed experience a highly intense developmental period
in which they have to make a lot of initial investments in order become professionalizsed, but this
is not necessarily the case with Dutch care farmers. This is on the one hand influenced by the fact
that the demand to professionalise in terms of education is not compulsory in the Netherlands,
whereas it is a requirement in Austria. Thus Austrians have to follow conventional guidelines to
become a care farmer because of missing special “care farming guidelines”, whereas the Dutchdevelopment in terms of care farming has now advanced to the point that already a general care
farmer education program exists. Dutch care farmers who attend the general education course for
Landbouw and zorg are provided with knowledge they need in order to successfully offer care at the
farm. Austrian care farmers on the other hand, except those who attend the course in animal
assisted therapy and pedagogic, need to look for and evaluate a variety of different courses or
contact partners in order to reach the information they need. As already stated above, education
programs about animal assisted therapy and pedagogic and horticultural therapy exist in Austria,
but in contrast to the Netherlands those who want to offer this form of therapy or pedagogic
have to attend the courses in order to be allowed to offer it. Moreover, those who want to offer
neither horticultural therapy nor animal assisted therapy but another form of care at the farm,
need to attend conventional care education programs in order to become a care giver. Still it is
noted that as soon as 24hours care is offered, the demand to professionalise increases in both
countries. Dutch care farmers offer predominantly day-care, more accurately, they offer a
working therapy for a variety of clients during week days but also sometimes on weekends,
whereas Austrian care farmers offer day and 24hours care and the latter increases the demand of
professionalisation. It can be stated that the above mentioned national differences imply a higher
initial investment in education and farm adaption during the developmental period in Austria,
consequently the investment in terms of time, energy and money is higher. Additional problems
and challenges can appear such as who undertakes all the tasks a care farmer is responsible for
when the care farmer needs to attend courses, who pays for the courses, who helps to adapt the
farm in order to make it client friendly etc.
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Because of the large diversity in terms of clients in this sample, many different financial structures
of the investigated care farms could be observed in Austria, but only if the preconditions in terms
of guidelines that care institution have to follow is given. This is not the case with farmers from
the group of Perg and that of AAT/AAP in Austria. Although they invested a lot in terms of
education and farm adaption, it is not as much as a care institution would have to invest.
Therefore they do not receive additional grants at the present time and clients have to pay for
care by themselves. The consequence is that it decreases the chance that clients visit a care farm
but also that farmers reach enough income when comparing the necessary investment and
possible income. Austria’s independent care farmers are either embedded in an organisation,
which ensures their income, like Claudia C. who is a social worker at a care institution for
psychologically ill adolescents. Claudia’s employer allows her to start an outpost of the care
institution at the farm and gets paid for that. A different case is Renate Q. who offers 24h care
for elderly at her farm and had to follow all guidelines a care institution has to follow in order to
reach subsidised care places, meaning the client does not pay for everything, rather the state
subsidises at least what the client is not able to pay. This ensures that clients do not perceive
financial disadvantages when living at a care farm and demands that the care farmer offers a care
institution than a traditional farm. Those independent care farmers, who do not face a situation
similar to the depicted cases above, also need to find clients that pay for care by themselves.
In contrast to that, the Netherlands decided to develop a very client oriented care structure that is
visualised by the personal care budget. Those clients who where assessed to conform to the
preconditions in order to reach a personal care budget, have the possibility to freely choose their
care place, whereby a care farm is one option. If such a client finds a certain care farm suitable for
care or working therapy, he or she is allowed to contract with a care farmer directly and to pay for
that offer by using the personal care budget. Care farmers from Utrecht who are members of
VUZB predominantly have clients that obtain a personal care budget; hence they have a direct
cooperation with clients in order to offer care. Members of Landzijde only partly have this direct
contract with clients as they are predominantly provided with clients through Landzijde, who on
the one hand have an AWBZ accreditation, meaning the formal status of a health institution, but
on the other hand does not require their members – care farmers – to be educated in terms of
care (farming).
Nevertheless, the call for more professionalisation in terms of education is getting louder in the
Netherlands and care farmers and indirectly the organisation of Landzijde is forced to follow this
call in the future. That is also why Landzijde increasingly forces their members to attend at least
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their regional studies four times a year and also appreciate if farmers participate in a two year
course „zorg en landbouw“ for care farmers.
Beside national differences in terms of this demand to professionalise and the diverse amount of
initial investments, all farmers from both countries need to deal with business questions when
developing a care farming project, whereby outcomes have shown that (care farming) business
related questions could be challenging for farmers from all investigated groups. Business related
questions can be questions about how to write a good business plan and how to obtain loans
(bank) or subsidies, but also how to advertise for the care farm and to acquire clients, especially
clients who visit the farm permanently to be able to plan with the income through care tasks.
Moreover, farmers need to ask for the professional fee and aver legal entitlements (fee claims, law
of tenancy, claim adherence to contracts by clients etc.). Farmers need to know or needinstruction/guidance about how to start up a care farm, including how to adapt the farm. In
Austria in particular there is a lack of concrete contact partners in terms of information about this
stage. Additonally, therapists or care institutions that cooperate with the care farmer or care
professionals who could be employed at the farm need to be found. In summary, the so-called
business questions are:
• Instruction: How to start up a care farm?
• How to obtain loans (bank, subsidies)?
• How to advertise and acquire clients?
• How to define and ask for the professional fee?
• How to find therapists or care institutions that cooperate with the care farmer?
In order to cope with these challenges and problems in terms of the demand to professionalise
and of business questions during the developmental period, farmers might profit from being
affiliated with a group of care farmers that offers a certain amount of social capital. How they cope with these problems and which forms of social capital are important in order to successfully
go through this period is discussed below. The following two chapters contain findings in order
to focus on working hypothesis 3 (see 3.4) in which it is assumed that the amount of group social
capital influences the ability to cope with problems and challenges, which in the developmental
period means to cope with business questions and the demand to professionalise.
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6.2.2 The role of social capital in order to cope with the
demand to professionalize
Findings have shown that the willingness to professionalise is influenced by the amount of group
social capital and by increasing participative management in terms of how professionalisation
should look. The importance of group social capital in terms of group identity and solidarity
increases, the higher the demand to professionalise and the less the possibility to influence the
requirements on how to professionalise. Moreover, intra-group communication increases the
possibility to exchange practical knowledge that helps to stabilise one’s own care farming project.
In order to explain these findings, the following cases are depicted.
Far and away the highest investment for professionalisation was made by members of the groupof Perg (high amount of group social capital), which was affected first of all by the form of care,
namely 24hours care that demands much more investment than day care, but also by national
conditions, because professional elderly care at the farm was new at this time and no special care
farming rules existed. Thus, this was a completely new situation pioneers and public authorities
had to deal with and negotiations between them were necessary in order to define to which extent
professionalisation was needed. Still, Perg’s care farmers are not satisfied with the result of these
negotiations, because although they established this new form of care, they faced many difficult
requirements such as the demand to become employed by the Red Cross for insurance reasons,
which practically means they had to offer care at the farm and off the farm, the lack of subsidised
care places, and also the intense education course. Farmers needed to attend about 1000 hours
conventional education training for elderly care and build one or two disability friendly
apartments each, whereas some renovated a building but others built a new one.
One important negotiation partner was the head for social affairs (Soziallandesrat) of the
Provincial Government of Upper Austria. All interviewed pioneers from Perg mentioned thatthey would have had more creative leeway in order to interpret the care laws, but that they
personally did not support the idea of care farming because they were not involved from the
beginning. Farmers’ initial expectations about requirements that need to be followed in order to
offer care at the farm and actual requirements were widely different. They expected to attend a
course for a few weeks instead of a one-year education training, to be allowed to work at the farm
only instead of being a professional care giver for the Red Cross and at least to get the right for
subsidised care places that would value this care place equal to a conventional care place.
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Members of the group of Perg faced not only a similar initial situation because all of them were
traditional farmers who were searching for a new income possibility in order to maintain their
farm and are from the same region, but also went through the innovation process at the same
time and offer the same form of care. This group of pioneers faced many hurdles, on the one
hand to establish elderly care at a farm in Austria per se, and on the other hand because of the
requirements they met in order to be allowed to offer this form of care. Findings have shown that
this homogeneity in terms of their circumstances, especially that they went through the process of
innovation at the same time, increased not only their group social capital but also their benefit of
being affiliated with the care farmer union, as this fact influenced the course of innovation
incredibly.
First of all, pioneers were more powerful in forcing through their interests than solitary negotiating with public authorities in order to establish elderly care at the farm. During the
developmental period the group decided to found a union to reach an “official” status and get
more influence in terms of all necessary negotiations with other organisations, meaning to create
strength for one’s own interests. Still, the demanded requirements are unsatisfactorily high and no
imitators are known ten years after those pioneers from Perg have started the project. Still most
of these pioneers currently practice care farming and were at least able to establish the project in
their region.
But it was not possible to dissuade us [the pioneers] from our idea [elderly care at the farm] becauseI still think that it is a great project and a good form to live […] even if we would have wished thatthe requirements would be lower. (Group of Perg, care farmer, adopted, Elfi J.)
Members of the group of Perg discussed if they should attend this course or rather terminate the
project and were only disposed to go through this training because of being backed up within this
group. They organised car pools to the school, learned together and swapped ideas about the
content of this training, but beside this practical and information related support they motivated
each other because of having fun and enjoying being a group of pioneers. Therefore group
identity increased because of facing the same situation at the same time with the consequence of a
higher motivation to cope with the double burden of the care training and the demand to fulfil
farming tasks at home. Orientation increased by visiting each other’s construction zones, it was
possible to see how others adapted the farm and built the disability friendly apartments. All
members of Perg perceive the membership to the care farmer union as quite important and the
willingness to professionalise increased because of the high group social capital with the result of
increasing the motivation to manage all these challenges.
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Because we (members of the care farmer union) encouraged each other actually, we had funtogether during the education course, we met each other, we talked about everything with eachother and went through the necessary negotiations with organisations and public authoritiestogether. The group-solidarity was good and important. A kind of pioneer atmosphere existedactually (laughs) and that was actually very important. (Group of Perg, care farmer, adopted, Elfi J.)
Interviewer: How do you profit from being a member of the care farmer union?Care farmer: Yes it is an exchange of information, how do the others perform? And that aspect wassimply that was simply very important, let’s say that we developed everything together and that we
went through all the problems together, we would have probably given up if we had had to cope with those challenges by our self. (Group of Perg, care farmer, adopted, Olivia J.)
The group of AAT/AAP from Austria that has a low group social capital was not able to
influence the content of the education course or the professionalisation rules because they were
top down defined by the ÖKL. But in contrast to members of Perg, who did not expect a
professional education training at the beginning, the attendees of the course for animal assisted
therapy and pedagogic expected to meet a clearly defined and professionalised training and to get
to know an already established structure that would allow them to successfully offer care at their
farm, when the contrary was infact true. The course was a pilot project and needed to be adapted,
also this form of therapy was in its early stages of development. The heterogeneity in terms of
participants’ initial situation decreased the probability to identify with each other because some of
them were double qualified as care givers (therapists etc.) and farmers and others were farmers
only and all of them came from a different region. The different background and expectations in
terms of the course led to conflicts rather than being able to better cope with the demand to
professionalise. Nevertheless, members of this group got to know each other as soon as they
attended the course and profited from the possibility to exchange practical knowledge, although
they did not motivate each other to attend the course or to adapt the farm. Hence they attended
the education training but not all of them adapted the farm or currently offer care at their farm
successfully. Their group identity was rather low, but still the fact of knowing other people who
also practice this form of care and who value it as positive, increased their motivation to continue
with the new practice. Austria’s group of independents especially mentioned feeling a bit like aloner with the consequence of demotivation. This was inspite of most members of the group of
independent care farmers from Austria being original care givers who later became farmers, or
care farmers. Their willingness to professionalise in terms of care tasks was not influenced by the
wish to become a care farmer, so a comparison in terms of the importance of social capital within
the group is obsolete.
In contrast to the strict top down defined professionalisation guidelines in Austria, Dutch care
farmers consider quality guidelines or appreciate the increasing demand to professionalise and toattend education trainings, but are not constrained by this. Nevertheless, members of VUZB that
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obtain a high group social capital discuss future aims in terms of professionalisation within the
group, define their norms and values in terms of the quality of care farming and develop the main
tasks that should be provided by the union together, for instance if insurance or care experts etc.
should be invited in order to hold a presentation about these issues. Moreover, they adapt the
national quality guidelines together in order to make it applicable for their certain conditions and
agree in terms of the need to attend at least a two day instruction course for care farming, “so it is
very important to have good quality standards and so there are courses for everybody to start [a
care farm]” (Group of VUZB, care farmer, adopted, Hendrika de P.). Members of this group are
willing to professionalise and to offer high quality but want to define for themselves how to
professionalise.
In contrast to that, the definition of how to become professionalised within the Landzijdefarmers, which has a rather low group social capital, deals with top down defined
professionalisation guidelines, meaning Landzijde demands from their members to attend the
regional studies four evenings a year where they provide them with presentations about care tasks
and diagnosis but also with information about safety requirements that are needed at the farm.
Similar to members from VUZB, some Landzijde farmers attended the two-year course in care
farming, while some did not attend or only attended the required regional studies. There are no
possibilities for Landzijde farmers in order to influence the course on how to develop
professionalisation guidelines, to influence future aims of this organisation and to mention
suggestions for improvement. In times of an increasing demand to professionalise, Landzijde
farmers either tend to terminate care farming because their initial investment in order to start up a
care farm was very low, and even if they are not willing to professionalise they partly understand
Landzijde’s requirements and the need for qualified care farmers. Landzijde farmers who are
willing to professionalise would prefer to influence this discussion process about quality
guidelines and the need for certain forms of education and therefore tend to quit their
membership to Landzijde in order to increase their autonomy. Most of them do not want to
become a conventional care giver but would rather prefer to learn the tools they need, for
instance, if they work only with clients who have a burn-out, they do not want to attend courses
about schizophrenia etc. Nevertheless, findings have shown that members of this group did not
motivate each other in order to professionalise, rather the reverse. The low group social capital in
terms of group identity and solidarity lead farmers to terminate the project or to quit their
membership to Landzijde in order to increase their self-determination, instead of following
Landzijde’s professionalisation guidelines.
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All cases within the sample who attended long or short education training in care farming,
mentioned to profit personally, that it increased their self-confidence and their ability to deal with
clients. Thus they perceive the training to be necessary in order to become a care farmer even if
they experienced a double burden when attending the course.
The education training was very important, that was a precondition in order to start with elderly care at the farm, to get a read of that whole, the elderly care, to envisage with what you will have todeal with in the future. (Group of Perg, care farmer, adopted, Veronika K.)
Intra group communication on the one hand can help to find common norms and values in order
to define high quality of care farming, and in that respect increase the willingness to
professionalise. Moreover, the exchange of practical knowledge between care farmers helps to
improve their projects, whereas solitary negotiations with public authorities on professionalisation
guidelines increase the likelihood that guidelines are practical and that care farmers feel obliged to
follow them. As soon as national quality guidelines are adapted in a solitary process, the
discussion about this topic as well as the stabilisation of common norms and values about high
quality increases, which is why the probability that those farmers professionalise increases. Beside
the importance of group solidarity, group identity also seems to have quite a powerful effect in
this respect because it allows producing a feeling of belonging, with the consequence of a high
motivational effect. Even if care farmers perceive the requirements of the demanded education
courses to be over-regulated, the group feeling can lead them to professionalise.
Findings have shown that the willingness to professionalise increases if farmers are able to
influence the demand to professionalise, if they see the necessity of this professionalisation and if
their norms and values meet the requirements of professionalisation. The less they can influence
the requirements about how to become professionalised the more that group social capital is
important, as it increases the likelihood of mutual motivation to continue the project even if they
perceive the demanded requirements as an over-regulation.
6.2.3 The role of social capital in order to cope with
business questions
Members of the group of Perg and of VUZB who have a high group social capital supported
each other in terms of business questions; for that reason they developed a common homepage
to present their offer to outsiders and to potential clients. Folders were designed and displayed at
different locations. They also propagated their care farms at regional events. In terms of
advertisement the group of Perg applied together for an innovation prize and won a TV
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presentation, hence their work was broadcasted on a national TV station with a great response
with the consequence that the awareness about care farming within the society was increased and
that members of the group got new clients. Being in the group was important in this case because
care farmers mentioned they would not have applied for the prize individually.
Both, the group of VUZB and that of Perg offer one contact partner for potential clients and
cooperation partners (health institutions), but interested parties can also choose a special care
farm and contact each member of the group directly. Nevertheless, the contact partner is
responsible for distributing new information and requests from clients and cooperation partners
to every member of the group. They advertise together, but in principle every farmer is
responsible to acquire clients him/herself and that is why farmers often also advertise their own
farm, too. However, they learned how to advertise within the group and profited from that.
Yes we developed a folder and do public relations together and that is especially for beginnersrelevant. We have a counter were we match clients and farmers when new clients contact us andthen we mail it to every member of our group but it does not work excellently that you make a lotof interventions. (Group of VUZB, care farmer, adopted, Hendrika de P.)
Interviewer: And did you receive clients because of being a member of the union?Care farmer: Yes this worked because if clients asked the contact person of the union thisinformation was distributed to every member of the group. (Group of Perg, care farmer, adopted,Olivia J.)
The group of Perg organised the rental agreement and the pricing together, thus findings show
that they were able to explain in detail and with persuasion how much and why they ask for a
certain professional fee because they had already dealt with that subject within the group and
have found a common agreement about how much to ask for their service. Compared to regular
health institutions they were able to offer care very cheap but care farmers are aware of that and
believe that their professional fee is fair for clients and farmers. Members of VUZB
predominantly have a direct cooperation with clients who receive the personal care budget and in
this respect the professional fee is already predefined, which is an advantage for them.
[…] we made common folders at the beginning where also the prize was mentioned, we made thatuniform. (Group of Perg, care farmer, adapted, Olivia J.)
Interviewer: And which possibilities did you have in order to influence the amount of theprofessional fee?Care farmer: This was a group work, we followed prizes customary in a place and we said we do not
want to be overprized. (Group of Perg, care farmer, adapted, Elfi J.)
The group of Perg applied for EU subsidies together with support of the regional lobby for
general farmers in order to enable internal investments such as building apartments etc. Thegroup of VUZB applied for and received subsidies by the municipality in order to support their
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group work financially. “And this is work from volunteers [members of VUZB] and yes it was
also the case that we had too much to do but it was important that someone did these tasks so we
looked [successfully] for a sponsor.” (Group of VUZB, care farmer, adopted, Hendrika de P.)
Cooperation partners and negotiations with public authorities or health institutions are part of the
tasks that are fulfilled within the group and seemed to be easier because as a group they felt much
more powerful in order to advocate for their aims. It got easier to find care institutions that were
interested to cooperate with them because of being able to perform as a union instead of a single
care farmer.
And we were able to advocate for our aims we were stronger as a group. (Group of Perg, carefarmer, Olivia J., adopted)
Interviewer: What are the advantages ob being a member of the union?
Care farmer: Simply that we are a coherent entity that we belong together because we can presentourself this way better in public. (Group of Perg, care farmer, Olga Z., adopted)
The group fulfils business tasks with the consequence of quite successful client acquisition and a
coherent professional fee that was defined within the group (group of Perg) or predefined
through national standards (group of VUZB). The group requested subsidies; hence it was
possible to slip in knowledge from all members about how to request for subsidies but also to
decrease the necessary amount of resources that needed to be invested by each member of the
group. And finally, negotiations and networking with care institutions seemed to be easier for
group members because they felt stronger and more powerful as a group.
In contrast to the situation of the groups with the highest amount of social capital, the group of
Landzijde with a low group social capital performed differently in terms of business questions,
because the commercially organised association of Landzijde undertakes all business tasks for
their members as long as they pay about 20% of their income per hour for each conciliated client,
as well as a membership fee. “For instance, if a client has 100 Euro, then the organisation
Landzijde receives 1/5 and the care farmer receives 80%” (Regional coordinator of Landzijde).Some of the Landzijde members do not only reach their clients through this organisation but also
have a direct cooperation with clients who receive a personal budget. This is why especially those
members who receive clients directly and clients from Landzijde are more conscious about the
Landizde’s agency fee, and subsequently new problems, such as dissatisfaction and distrust can
occur.
Well we asked Lanzijde if we can become a member, äh, for the sake of simplicity because they
already have a network in order to reach clients. My sister has her own personal budged and she visits our care farm through a direct cooperation with us not via Landzijde and this is financially
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more attractive because Landzijde`s agency fee is quite high. (Group of Landzijde, care farmer,adopted, Orlando and Noa U.)
Landzijde is an organisation with a strong brand and is highly interconnected with all relevant
organisations in terms of care farming, beginning from public authorities to health institutions
and special national and regional care farming and farming organisations. It offers folders, a
movie about care farming and a homepage – including a presentation of all their members who
pay a membership fee. Generally, Landzijde recruits clients and is responsible for matching clients
to care farms, but there are rather subjective guidelines for that and the distribution of clients is
non-transparent for Lanzijde members, which is also criticised by some of them. In summary,
Landzijde has a key position between care organisations or clients and care farmers and also
recruits farmers and provides them with necessary information about how to start up a care farm,
acts as a contact partner if problems in terms of clients occur and undertakes all administrativetasks (payments, contracts etc.).
Care farmer: And she [regional coordinator of Landzijde] did it very well, she informed us very wellon how you can start up a care farm and what to do.Interviewee: How did she do that?Care farmer: Through a folder and a book and via internet. And she was here to talk with uspersonally about it. (Group of Landzijde, care farmer, terminated, Finn & Jacoba B.)
Because they [Landzijde] take over all the financial posturing (Getue) that is something they organised completely. (Group of Landzijde, care farmer, terminated, Piet Z.)
And once a month you send your working hours via e-mail to Landzijde and then you receive yourpayment. And even if your care farm is presented on their website it is still advertisement for yourown farm. (Group of Landzijde, care farmer, terminated, Finn and Jacoba B.)
For Landzijde members business related challenges decrease and group solidarity in these terms is
low because their organisation provides them with all relevant information and undertakes all
administrative tasks for a fee. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, this causes new conflicts and
problems, for instance, the feeling that Landzijde asks for an overpriced fee compared to their
effort, that cronyism influences who receives more clients and who receives less, and also that it isnot possible to influence the development of Landzijde in terms of future aims. This distrust
originated in a low transparency and in the fact that Landzijde is rather hierarchically organised.
So although farmers are relieved in terms of coping with business questions, only some members
are satisfied with their situation.
Yes look, for instance, the head of Landzijde. His wife has a care farm and his son too, and thisfavouritism that is something I do not like. A care farmer that is also employed at Landzijde alsoreceives clients. And we are much more critical and then you do not get clients and that is
something I think is very bad. Therefore, I will look for my own way and that is something I hearfrom a lot of people. Those who suck up to Landzijde receive clients and others not. They
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[Landzijde] monopolise the market quite good and if I look at my farm, we meet all requirementsbut others receive the clients. (Group of Landzijde, care farmer, adopted, Orlando and Noa U.)
Similar to the members of Landzijde, also the members of AAT/AAP do not have a high group
social capital from which they could profit in terms of coping with business questions. Members
of AAT/AAP acquire clients and advertise more or less successfully for their care farms not in
the group but themselves. It is appreciated by members of the group that ÖKL, the organisation
that developed and organised the education course for animal assisted therapy and pedagogic,
could and should undertake these tasks in the future. Five members of the group of AAT/AAP
were interviewed, of whom two developed a homepage about their own project themselves and
also have enough clients and cooperation partners who provide them with clients. Three
interviewees do not present their work at a homepage and struggle with the question about how
to advertise their project as well as with the aspect that they do not have enough clients. They feelthey do not have enough resources in terms of knowledge and time about how to advertise their
project and would very much appreciate if the ÖKL would advertise their care farms, respectively
for animal assisted therapy and in general. All interviewees attended the pilot education course
and because of problems in terms of client acquisition, the course committee decided to set up
new rules for further courses. In the meantime it is a prerequisite to have a cooperation partner
before being allowed to attend the education training in order to make sure that those who are
educated also have clients to care for.
Farmers from the group of AAT/AAP do negotiate and network with relevant social or health
institutions, municipalities etc. individually, which is similar to the group of independents who
also do not have anyone who advertises or recruits clients for them. All members of the group
received information about how to start up a care farm and how to practice animal assisted
therapy, although a realisation of this practice is still hindered by a low level of awareness in terms
of this form of therapy within society. As already stated the members of AAT/AAP are not from
the same region and do not meet each other regularly in order to transfer relevant information,for instance, about how to advertise etc. Still it is obvious that some of them possess more
competencies and fulfilling those kind of business tasks together could lead to higher success for
all of them. Moreover, it can be distinguished between those who already have a homepage and
ask for their professional fee as it was predefined by ÖKL, and those who feel insecure in terms
of asking for that fee because in their point of view it is too high and cannot be afforded by
clients. Thus, they proceed rather to lose clients, which hinders them from increasing their
financial benefit by asking for the predefined fee.
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Yes and through animal assisted therapy I got no income last year. There is again advertisementnecessary and the ÖKL does not want to advertise because they are so afraid that they cannot getthe situation under control because there are so many interested people expected to be. Andeverything is too expensive, when people visit my farm they have to pay that from their privatepurse and so only people who have enough money and who want to use it for this form of therapy can come and the ÖKL defined the professional fee and that would be 90 Euros per hour. But I do
not ask for the 90 Euros because it needs always a farm and a professional pedagogue but I amdouble qualified and so I ask only for 55 Euros. […] and now I have all the education courses but itfails because of a lack of clients because there is no money and society is not aware of the necessity of this form of therapy. (Group of AAT/AAP, care farmer, adopted, Irma F.)
The group of AAT/AAP has on the one hand the advantage of knowing other care farmers and
having a central contact point, namely the organisation of ÖKL that offers the education course,
and on the other hand is not solitary in terms of business questions; the latter is similar to
Austria’s independents.
The group of independents that is actually not a group but clustered as one entity in this study
does not have one central contact point and in general they are also not in contact with each
other. Therefore their group social capital is non-existent, and in contrast to the group of
AAT/AAP they also do not expect any other organisation to fulfil their business tasks. They are
aware that they are responsible for themselves when it comes to those tasks and are similar to the
members of groups with a low social capital (the group of Landzijde and the group of
AAT/AAP) and more or less successful with that. Most of them are double qualified, meaning
professional care givers and farmers, so they often already have contacts to care institutions and
try to use them in order to receive clients. Nevertheless, they need to present their new practice
and to convince their cooperation partners themselves, because they are not a member of a care
farmer union and cannot refer to an already established organisation. They partly deal quite
successfully with business questions, meaning some of them advertise successfully and reach
enough clients. They also ask for a professional fee but need to define it themselves and they
often need to contact a high number of different organisations in order to reach the necessary
information about how to start up a care farm, because no special care farming expert centreexists. Although they need to invest a lot more energy in order to deal with business questions,
being affiliated with a care farmer union is not the one and only indicator for the successful
stabilisation of the new practice.
In summary it can be said that regardless of whether someone profits from a group social capital
or not, it is possible to start up and to stabilise a care farm. Nevertheless, it is meaningful to look
closely at this aspect in order to understand if care farmers’ membership to a group with high
social capital indeed helps to stabilise the project or if this is useless invested time for tasks that
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could also be fulfilled by him/herself personally or could be provided by an external organisation
like Landzijde.
Findings have shown that the advantages of being affiliated with a care farmer union that has a
high group social capital are still manifold in order to deal with business questions. Intra-group
communication allows those who have less knowledge about how to advertise, to obtain loans
and subsidies, to start up a care farm, to define the professional fee and to find cooperation
partners, to discuss it with colleagues and to enhance their business acumen. All these tasks could
be provided also by experts who possess much more professional knowledge in terms of that, but
as findings have shown this intra-group communication and group solidarity that is provided
when care farmers deal with business questions within a care farmer union have advantageous
side effects.
On the one hand care farmers can provide each other with practical knowledge
(Erfahrungswissen) that only those who practice care farming can have. On the other hand group
identity increases with an increasing history of interactions and with offering a common
homepage, which would be one aspect of advertising together. Moreover, when defining the
professional fee together, farmers become aware of the value of their offer and through this
discussion they indirectly share solidarity in terms of norms and values. This group identity
produces a feeling of belonging and of being backed up; they are not loners but a member of agroup of pioneers with the consequence of being motivated in terms of continuing with their
own project. They become aware that others also have to cope with similar problems and
challenges and they get to know how colleagues deal with that. Moreover, colleagues provide
esteem support because the group members’ practical knowledge is important and useful for all
of them and sharing knowledge has a motivational effect that in the long term stabilises the
project. Being affiliated with a care farmer union with high group social capital also decreases
transaction costs because Austria’s care farmers in particular need to contact a range of different
organisations in order to collect the necessary knowledge for starting up a care farm and often
there is a lack of energy in order to stabilise and implement the project because they have already
invested a lot for it’s development.
Moreover, care farmers do not only feel a sense of power, but indeed become more powerful
when they need to negotiate with potential cooperation partners in order to acquire clients and to
find care professionals who cooperate with them when presenting themselves as a member of an
official care farmer union, especially of a regional union. Not only their acceptance and prestigeincreases by being affiliated within an official care farmer union, but together they are able to
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offer a range of different farms and forms of care through an official homepage and this increases
the likelihood that they successfully find partners. Group solidarity in terms of business questions
increases the stabilisation of the new practice in the long term because even if some members
terminate their project, the union still exists and can develop a strong brand and build a strong
network with relevant institutions that can already be provided for freshmen. As soon as those
unions are organised at a regional level, the profit for farmers increases because it is more likely
that they attend the meetings or deal with business tasks together, while also the unions’ network
with care institutions etc. is more useful for them in order to acquire clients etc.
Such a well-established and well-known organisation with a strong brand is Landzijde that fulfils
all business tasks in order to decrease farmers’ effort in terms of that, but the lack of intra-group
communication and group solidarity between its members (the care farmers) brings up new challenges and problems. In contrast to all other investigated groups within this sample,
Landzijde farmers do not have to invest time and energy in order to cope with business
questions, although not all of them are satisfied with this situation because they are much more
aware of Landzijde’s agency fee that is very much understood as negative support. Members of
the group of VUZB and that of Perg with a high group social capital need to invest much more
time in order to fulfil business related questions in comparison to Landzijde members, and they
could also perceive this aspect as negative support, but although they predominantly do not. The
advantages that are mentioned above such as esteem and motivational support or the exchange of
practical knowledge overbalance the disadvantage of the high amount of invested time. The lack
of intra-group communication and of transparency about how clients get distributed to different
farms, and also the lack of the right of co-determination in terms of future aims, for instance how
to professionalise, increases distrust and decreases their willingness to follow Landzijde’s
requirements such as attending the regional studies.
Findings have shown that those farmers who are less satisfied with Landzijde are willing to invest
more time and energy in order to cope with business questions themselves, advertise themselves
and prefer a direct cooperation with clients in order to attain more income. They contemplate
about how care farming should develop in the future and which aspects could be improved such
as how much a farmer needs and should know about clients’ diagnosis. Those farmers are willing
to influence the future aims of Landzijde and are willing to attend education courses as long as
they address the need in terms of their client group. They tend to refuse Landzijde’s course of
professionalising care farming that demands farmers to learn general information about a range of
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diseases and how to cope with these clients, but prefer to be individually educated in what they
actually need to know, as they only offer care for a few client groups only.
Well I think the organisation is not very professional in terms of how they treat clients becausethere was a meeting with an employee of Landzijde, a potential client and me at my farm in order tofind out if the client wants and can stay at this farm. And the employee of Landzijde handed out alldocuments about the clients’ diagnosis while the client sits beside me and that is something I think is unprofessional. As a care farmer you are not used to that and most of us are not at home in thatsubject of diagnosis. (Group of Landzijde, care farmer, adopted, Orlando and Noa U.)
Other less critical members of Landzijde prefer not to be responsible for all those business tasks
but also do not want to invest a lot of energy in terms of their care farming tasks. They perceive
the increasing enforcement to visit courses and to become educated and also to adapt the farm, as
over-regulation and rather prefer to terminate care farming than to follow this upcoming need to
professionalise. They were initially recruited by Landzijde, offered care for a few clients only, didnot invest in terms of education or adapting the farm and do not see the balance between their
income and the demand to professionalise.
And what I personally think about Landzijde? I actually do not know. I was never at the meetings[regional studies] and those things, they are too far away from here […] and I did not want to haveanything to do with this financial posturing, I did not want that I have to be behind my money. Andthat whole paperwork that is something people have to do who are good in those things. (Group of Landzijde, care farmer, terminated, Piet Z.)
6.2.4 Supporters and obtained and needed forms of support
when developing the care farming project
In order to cope with these challenges and problems and the working tasks that occur especially
during the developmental period, care farmers are not only in contact with their care farming
union, supposing that a union membership exists, but also mention further actors to be
important. Both, the union and further supporters are considered next. The following chapter
provides findings about care farmers’ perceived importance of supporters and the obtained forms
of support and its consequences during the developmental period, whereby the working
hypothesis one and two (see 3.4) are addressed partly in this form of presentation, as the focus is
on the developmental period only.
The following network diagram presents the obtained forms of support and emphasises care
farmers’ supporters, while the end of the line is labelled and represents the supporters that are
mentioned by ego (32 care farmers) to be of varying importance in the developmental period. The
distance between ego, who is located in the centre of the diagram and represented by the
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pentagon, and the supporters exemplifies the importance of those actors perceived by care
farmers, which means the smaller the distance between ego and the certain actor, the higher the
perceived importance. As long as supporters are located in the first concentric circle near ego,
they are perceived to be very important, important are those in the second concentric circle and
relevant if they are located in the third concentric circle. The color of the line and the line
symbols differentiate between the investigated groups and indicates which group has a certain
amount of group social capital, to which the supporters belong, while after the supporters name
the form of support is visualised.
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Figure 6: The perceived importance of supporters and forms of support by care farmers during the
developmental period. [N=32]
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In the diagram above we can see that new actors and many more actors are of varying importance
during the developmental period compared to the initiation period, but that the role of family
members is resilient. Family members are perceived to be most important in every group, but not
only through their commitment about the new practice as this is necessary in the initiation period,
but also because of their practical support in the developmental period. Further actors that are
perceived to be of varying importance are apprenticeships and unions for general farms, and also
care institutions and care farmer unions. They provide different forms of practical support and
information related support in order to enable a care farmer to go through the developmental
period, while some also perceive social companionship to be important. The role supporters play
and why they are perceived to be of varying importance for certain groups of care farmers during
the developmental period is discussed below by considering the visual and verbal data, as only the
combination of both helps to understand their relevance.
In order to address the before mentioned importance of group social capital, I will start to
interpret the network diagram above from the viewpoint of the membership to a care farmer
union with a certain amount of group social capital. The highest group social capital is obtained
by members from Perg and by the group of VUZB, while members of AAT/AAP and of
Landzijde obtain low group social capital. The care farmer union is perceived to be of varying
importance in all of these groups but if we compare the groups that obtain high group social
capital with those that have a low group social capital, we can first of all see that the importance
and content multiplexity increases with increasing group social capital.
The care farmer union supports members of groups with high group social capital (group of
VUZB, group of Perg) practically; they obtain relevant information but also social
companionship. In addition to that, members of the group of Perg also feel highly motivated to
continue with the project through their union membership. Unlike these multiplex relationships,
members of unions with a low group social capital (group of AAT/AAP, group of Landzijde)
profit from information related support only, and some of the group of AAT/AAP also
mentioned being practically supported by their colleagues. This limited number of obtained forms
of support by the care farmer union is in the case of the group of Landzijde compensated and
caused by the commercial organisation of Landzijde. In this case, the need for a self help group
decreases, because they provide their members with all necessary information and practical help
(fulfil all the business tasks etc.). Thus why this actor is mentioned by the group of Landzijde to
be more important than the contact to the care farmer union. However, Austrian and Dutch care
farmers that obtain low group social capital perceive their membership to the union at least to be
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relevant because group membership allows the exchange of practical knowledge between
colleagues, which would hardly be possible without the contact to this group.
So, we can say that those without or with a low group social capital from Austria need to
compensate for this lack of support themselves, meaning the burden for care farmers and their
families increases. This does not become visible within the diagram because farmers perceive the
commitment and practical support of their family members to be most important. Nevertheless,
the extent of how much family members have to support differs and becomes visible by analysing
the verbal data. For instance in the case of Landzijde members, although their group social capital
is low, their families are often less involved and burdened by developing and practicing this form
of care at the farm, although they still mention their family members to be most important. This
aspect is strongly connected with low initial investments in terms of professionalisation and thesupport they obtain through Landzijde. Recalling the depicted findings in the chapter above, the
low demand of initial investments activates people to start up a care farm who are not willing to
invest temporal, emotional, financial, etc. resources in order to professionalise. This fact
combined with a low group social capital has the consequence that farmers are not going to
encourage each other to continue with the project when hurdles occur. Nevertheless, initial
investments are generally in every group higher than by Landzijde members and this fact restrains
someone to even start up a care farm and to try to develop such a project. Thus it appears that
Landzijde is able to relieve family members but it does not stabilise care farming while high group
social capital of a care farmer union and autonomy in terms of the care farming business seems to
do that in the long term. Even if the perceived importance of family members does not vary
across the groups, their amount of support differs. Still their commitment plays the most
important role during the process of innovation, independent from the group social capital of a
care farmer group, which innovators are affiliated with.
Findings have shown that the agreement or disagreement of family members do not only
influence farmers in the first period of the innovation, but that conflicts with family members
because of care farming or conflicting needs of family members and that of care farming also
influence the continuation of the project and that it is generally subordinated to family needs.
We had some clients that the children liked and they also had a good connection to them but wealso had a client with whom my children did not want to be in contact. She [the client] complainedabout everything, which was horrible. I would have accepted this but my children did not and itmade the whole thing more difficult […] and then my children criticised that [care farming] is notpossible this way. (Group of Perg, care farmer, terminated, Gerlinde F.)
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Not only the appreciation of a care farmer’s family but also their practical support is in most of
the cases important in order to develop and implement a care farming project. This does not
necessarily have to be care tasks per se that are fulfilled by family members but tasks that need to
be compensated by them because the care farmer fulfilled these tasks before starting up a care
farm, for instance a family member needs to do the household chores to enable the care farmer to
visit courses during the developmental period, but also when the farmer already offers care at the
farm the family is indispensable in order to accomplish farming and family tasks while the care
giver is responsible for clients. Moreover, new tasks emerge by care farming such as adapting the
farm for instance, building a canteen, apartments, but also transporting clients or managing care
farming business related questions such as advertising etc. All those things can often only be
realised or financed when family members are willing to practically support the care farmer.
Findings have shown that in all cases the commitment and or support by family members make
or break the chance for a successful implementation of the care farming project and that care
farmers assume these actors to be very important for the progress of the new practice in all
periods of the innovation. The more family members practically support and accept that care
farming is practiced at the farm, and also value it and stand behind the project, the more likely a
stabilisation of the project is achieved.
Well at home we built the apartments and I went to school [in order to be educated in elderly care]
and my mother in law cared for my child and cooked for the family and my husband wasresponsible for the farming business, hmhm that is how it worked. (Group of Perg, care farmer,adopted, Olga Z.)
The family has to undertake many more tasks if care farmers do not profit from their
membership to a certain care farmer union and do not have special support organisations in
terms of care farming, which is the case with Austria’s independents. As you can see in the
diagram they do mention a higher number of actors to be important in order to successfully go
through this period, rather the reverse. And even if this is not visible within the network diagram,
it is one outcome when analysing the verbal data.
Findings from qualitative analysis have shown that Austria’s independents need to contact a
variety of different actors as well, while only some of them are important and helpful supporters
because converse to the other groups from Austria, no central initiator and expert, such as the
ÖKL for animal assisted therapy or the union for general farming in Perg, provide them with a
variety of relevant information. In general, independents need to contact many organisations, for
instance, the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, the union for general farming and further
public authorities are contacted in order to procure all licences etc. Most of these organisations
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are responsible for general concerns and are not very supportive in order to develop care farming.
“All organisations that were contacted by us appreciated the idea of care farming but it was the
first time they heard about it and all of them told us that they do not know what they should do
with us at the moment.” (Group of independent, care farmer, adopted, Renate Q.) The opposite
is true for the Netherlands, where farmers have the possibility to choose from a number of
different care farming support organisations, such as Landzijde, the Steunpunt (former National
Support Centre for care farming) and even the organisation for general farming (LTO). These are
perceived to be informative in terms of care farming, which is why more important actors are
presented in the network diagram above in the Dutch care farming groups. Members of Perg
were original farmers in contrast to Austria’s independents and needed in this respect to negotiate
with a variety of different representatives of care institutions. These actors were perceived to be
important because without their commitment care farming would not have been realisable.
The term apprenticeship within this diagram contains long (1 year) and short (2 days) education
programs that are specialised on a form of care farming or focus on health care in general. So we
already know that members from Perg and Austria’s independents were educated as conventional
caregivers and only members of the group of AAT/AAP attended the special course in animal
assisted therapy and pedagogic that lasts about one year. Dutch care farmers partly attended the
two-year education program in care farming or are qualified care professionals, while others only
attended a two-day introduction course in care farming and visit the regional studies.
Thus, the variety of forms of places and education training for care farmers are large but for all of
them this training was perceived to be relevant and supportive in order to stabilise the care
farming project, with the exception of the group of Perg, which assumes the education training
and contact to trainers to be important. Their intense training but also the fact that they are
responsible 24hours for their clients influenced that the apprenticeship is more important for
them than for the other groups.
Care institutions are already important contact partners for those who develop a care farming
project because either those institutions already offer a form of care farming themselves and are
in this respect important informants about how to develop such a project, or are also important
for the later care farmer in order to get practical experience and to learn to be a care giver.
Beyond that, if farmers mention care institutions to be important, they are important negotiation
partners and valuable contacts in order to acquire clients from them.
I had a direct contact to the psychiatric department of Streetcorner [care institutions] because they are near by my farm. I went there once in order to tell them, well I am a farmer and perhaps it is
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nice as day activity for some of your clients […] that is how Willem, my first client came here.(Group of Landzijde, care farmer, adopted, Ruben Z.)
In general, the developmental period lasts at least about one year in the case of Austria’s care
farmers because of the demand to professionalise before offering care at the farm. Opposed to
this, members of Landzijde can theoretically start immediately to offer care at the farm. Even if
VUZB members need to meet the same professionalisation requirements as Landzijde members,
the first at least need to acquire clients themselves and to actively collect information about how
to start up a care farm. That is also why they mention the contacts to care institutions to be most
important but also tend to have more direct contacts to them than Landzijde members have.
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66..33 Characteristics of the
implementation periodInnovation always means combining old and new practices and in the case of care farming, this
means that the daily necessities of the agricultural business need to be in accordance with clients’
needs. That is why the following chapter focuses on the special challenges and problems that
occur during that time and which care farmers obtain and need certain forms of support, and
how they respectively profit from being affiliated within a group of care farmers through which
they obtain a certain amount of social capital. The working hypothesis 3 (see 3.4) is addressed
partly by this form of presentation because the focus is on the implementation period only.
6.3.1 Occurring problems and challenges when
implementing care farming
The following problems and challenges, summarised as emotional stress, tend to occur when the
farmer already offers care at the farm, which means there are special characteristics that occur
when combining old and new practices. Emotional stress is used as an umbrella term for findings
that relate to problems and challenges that lead to emotional burden. Not all aspects of emotional
stress are relevant in each investigated case because it is either connected to certain national
conditions and thus not relevant for cases from both countries, or the aspects are frequently
mentioned by some farmers of each group. The following problems leading to emotional stress
are observed in the sample.
First of all there is a question of lack of legal security, that is in general more relevant in the
Netherlands than in Austria because Austrian care farmers predominantly have to follow
conventional (care) laws and are able to cover insurance aspects in terms of care farming through
their insurance companies. In contrast to that, Dutch care farmers are in a critical situation
because on the one hand they are allowed to offer care at their farm without a professional
education etc., on the other hand concrete regulations in terms of insurance do not exist, as a
representative of the Dutch Ministry for Agriculture assumes “[…]there is a kind of grey zone for
care farmers, that is right, but there is also we are also a bit afraid about if sometime something
happens like a boy comes under a cow if accidents happen it might have quite a lot of impact.” If
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accidents happen at the farm, it is still not clear yet who assumes the full responsibility. As a result
farmers feel responsible but also burdened because of not being insured.
(Talks resentful) Well, the insurances and the responsibility. Someone [a care farmer] is responsible![…] I would wish a discussion within society about what is allowed and what not, and if all agreethat clients are allowed, for instance, to drive the tractor than it is excellent, but it is a problem if notall of us are aware and I think that society is not aware at this time. (Group of VUZB, care farmer,adopted, Isa C.)
A second aspect that leads to emotional stress is insecurity in terms of how to deal with certain
client groups, respectively the fear to behave improperly and to jeopardise clients’ health. If care
farmers are non-professional caregivers, more questions arise in terms of how to cope with
clients and their diseases and how to treat them correctly in respect to their needs. This insecurity
in terms of how to cope with clients’ behaviour or their symptoms increases the emotional
burden for farmers. Emotional stress increases, the less care farmers are embedded in a
professional team of caregivers, because the possibility to discuss certain occurrences or
insecurities in terms of the client decreases. Moreover, a care farmer is often the clients’ one and
only counterpart, which is a problem that can increase in the case of 24h care as soon as a single
care farmer is responsible for the clients, rather than a professional team.
The social contact they miss, and I was often the only contact person they [clients] had and if thengood and bad times are offloaded on me because no one else is there. That is often a lot, that is
better in public elderly care homes, because caregivers change and here is always only one referenceperson. (Group of Perg, care farmer, terminated, Gerlinde F.)
In addition to that and strongly connected to the aspect of not being professionalised in care
tasks, a lack of mental hygiene was observed. Often a very close relationship between clients and
their care farmers exists, with the consequence that farmers feel highly responsible for their
clients, “you are also emotionally connected to the client and then you think, well, we have to
help our clients” (Group of Landzijde, care farmer, adopted, Finn and Jacoba B.). “I felt bad
while I was responsible for the clients, it was psychological stress I have to confess that. (Group
of Perg, care farmer, terminated, Gerlinde F.). Farmers often still offer care because of their
strongly perceived responsibility for their clients even if they do not have enough resources
(emotional, time) or even if they do not receive enough income through care farming. In
summary, there is no professional supervision offered and no or only very little training in terms
of mental hygiene. In addition to that, emotional burden increases because care farming often
means a mix of roles, which cause new conflicts. Family farms are still very often
multigenerational houses and in the case of care farming, the caregiver is often at the same time
mother/father, farmer, wife/husband, daughter/son (in law), employer for the staff or boss for volunteers etc. Therefore especially multigenerational households offer enough reasons for
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conflicts. If clients get involved in the farming business, possible conflicts increase, in particular
when no clear rules in terms of who cares for the clients and who defines farming tasks are
established.
And because of this [role] conflict I realised to feel jitters in the morning and then I thought that itis too much. I know that this was also a reason for terminating the project because […] I felt thatthis mix is greatly difficult for me and I was not able to divide between those roles, for instance, if my son is disobedient I tent to turn a blind eye but for my clients I needed to be an authority.[...]And I felt this role mix was a burden and I felt a lot of pressure because of that. (Group of independent, care farmer, terminated, Claudia C.)
Extra burdens arise if there is a lack of private sphere and if no clear distinction in terms of
temporal or spatial aspects is made at the farm. As soon as clients are at the farm, conflicting
needs of family members and of clients occur. Family members want to, for instance, enjoy their
spare time at the farm and might feel disturbed by clients, or the family feels disturbed whensharing toilets, bathrooms and the kitchen with clients. A lack of clear arranged schedules about
the time periods in which farmers are responsible for their clients and at which places at the
farm clients are allowed to be, increase emotional stress for care farmers.
[…] for instance, I did not have a duty telephone and all clients did have my private number and if someone can imagine how psychiatric ill people can be, they can get a crisis in the middle of thenight and actually I am not a crisis intervention institution. (Group of independent, care farmer,terminated, Claudia C.)
Time-burden is another aspect that leads to emotional stress. It was observed that clients need
much more time than expected by care farmers, for instance, in terms of 24h care the client needs
sociality, the client becomes more infirm and needs more care etc. In the case of day care, a care
farmer needs preparation time (like making plans what to do with the client, organising work that
can be managed by clients etc.), rework time and last but not least the farmer needs to invest time
in education and in adapting the farm as a suitable care place (depending on the client group).
Time pressure increases as soon as the agricultural business is equally or more important than the
care business in order to reach income, because a care farmer has to reserve time in order to carefor the client on the farm. During this time it is usually not possible to move on with your normal
agricultural tasks, hence farmers have to adjust the tasks highly to suit clients’ needs and features.
This sometimes conflicts with agricultural needs and has to be compensated by the farmer, which
is why care farming can lead to emotional stress.
[…] the expectations of the clients are partly relatively high, they expect you to have a lot of time[…] and then they [the client] blamed me that I have not enough time for them, when I was nottalking with them each day for an hour or more…and that is something I haven’t expected that you
need that much time […] (Group of Perg, care farmer, terminated, Gerlinde F.)
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A lack of legal security, which is predominantly perceived by Dutch care farmers, a lack of
knowledge about how to deal with clients, a lack of mental hygiene and of private sphere for care
farmers’ families, a mix of roles and time burden lead to emotional stress for care farmers in the
time of implementing the new practice. Findings about how care farmers deal with this burden
and who from they receive support, and how much they respectively profit from their group
social capital of the care farmer group they are affiliated with, are explained next.
6.3.2 The role of social capital in order to deal with
emotional stress and further relevant supporters
Findings have shown, that a lack of legal security that is predominantly perceived by Dutch care
farmers, decreases with a membership to Landzijde because farmers are partly able to transfer the
responsibility to the organisation and feel relieved by that. Non-members of Landzijde rather
perceive a burden because of this grey zone, and tend to discuss it within the care farmer union
but also tend to inform key care givers regularly of their clients. The lack of legal security is on the
one hand a topic care farmers discuss with colleagues from the union, but on the other hand this
higher awareness does not decrease emotional burden.
Training provided by care professionals increases farmers’ capability to deal with clients and theirbackground in terms of clients’ diagnosis and behaviour and reduces emotional stress that could
occur through care insecurity. If farmers attend certain care education training (school education
or regional studies), their knowledge about certain symptoms and the ability to correctly interpret
clients’ behavior increases. With increasing self-confidence in terms of how to deal with clients,
the personal perceived stress subsides. The access to education programs is independent from the
amount of group social capital; as for instance Austria’s independents are often highly
professionalised in terms of care tasks but are not a member of a care farmer union. Still, care
farmer unions have the capability to invite speakers in order to provide them with knowledge that
is aimed more at their special needs and the higher the group social capital, the more the farmers
themselves can influence the agenda of these presentations.
If I attend presentations about for instance drug addiction that is very interesting for me, as a formof consulting. (Group of VUZB, high group social capital, care farmer, adopted, Cornelis & GrietjeK.)
First you think you are not able to practice this job, that was the feeling we had because of nothaving attended an education course regarding to care but in the meantime I am educated in thisrespect (Group of Landzijde, low group social capital, care farmer, adopted, Anouk & Levi S.)
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Nevertheless, beside training, additional regular contact to care professionals are quite important
for care farmers. They back up and distribute the feeling of responsibility and also increase the
security about the clients’ needs being met and that they do not behave improperly and jeopardise
clients’ health. Farmers for instance tend to keep in contact with the family doctor and even if
there is no special occasion that would ask for a doctors’ visit, they ask the doctor to make a
round in order to cover ones back. Moreover, if farmers are embedded in a professional team of
caregivers, they tend to discuss their insecurity in terms of how to deal with clients in order to
meet their needs rather than a team within the care farmer union. Care farmers profit from the
regular exchange of knowledge within these teams and from professional supervisions and further
training in terms of mental hygiene. For example, in order to insure Perg’s care farmers, the Red
Cross offered to employ them, but with the requirement to work as a caregiver on the farm and
part time off the farm. The farmers who followed this option where much more affiliated with a
team of care professionals and profited from supervisions. Those who where not able to meet
these requirements needed to agree to a care contract in order to be insured, meaning a trained
nurse from the Red Cross visited the client at the farm at least once a week and cared for them or
controlled how the client is doing. Those farmers who followed the second option perceived the
contact to the trained nurse as very important because they had a constant confidential contact
partner whom they could ask questions but also from whom they received confirmation about
the correctness of their work.
Findings have shown that farmers prefer to be linked up with clients’ key care givers such as
parents, teachers, social workers etc. in order to receive on the one hand regularly feedback about
how the client is doing but also to feel backed up, meaning that they carry responsibility for
clients’ visits at the farm, too. An exception are those members of Landzijde who receive clients
from Landzijde only, because they generally not have direct contact to their clients’ key care
givers or to care professionals, as Landzijde holds that position. Consequently, farmers tend to
give up their responsibility and only if a mismatch within the farmer-client relationship is
perceived, the care farmer contacts Landzijde directly with the expectation that they find
solutions, whereas the solution is most of the time that the client is put to another care farm.
Nevertheless, the affiliation with a care farmer group with high group social capital in terms of
intra-group communication increases the exchange of practical knowledge and helps farmers to
deal with clients. Frequent communication within the care farmer union and mutual visits at the
farm increases a care farmer’s orientation about how others deal with clients, cope with problems
in terms of clients’ diagnosis or symptoms and increases their confidence to operate within the
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legal framework. They predominantly exchange information about how they organise working
days with clients and which tasks are suitable for clients, but also how they adapt the farm in
order to make it client friendly and to save one’s own private sphere. Based on practical
knowledge, the union of VUZB established the rule that farmers and new clients have to have a
probationary period before they decide to contract with each other. This course of action
decreases the likelihood that a farmer struggles with clients because of a mismatch.
Farmers who perceive fewer problems in terms of a role mix and of a lack of private sphere,
often established clear schedules in which only the caregiver is at the farm, whereby farmers’
children are at school and farmers’ wives work off the farm during that time, or spatial
distinctions are made, such as extra canteens, toilets and rooms etc. The exchange of this practical
knowledge between care farmers can help beginners to avoid a role mix and to save privatesphere, but also increases their knowledge about certain client groups and their needs.
Nevertheless, there is no correlation found between those who are able to save the private sphere
and to avoid the problem of a role mix and the amount of social capital of the group of care
farmers they are affiliated with.
Frequent meetings with care farmer colleagues allow farmers to exchange their practical
knowledge and these groups function like a self-help group. It decreases the necessity to talk with
family members about the care farming business and subsequently saves privates sphere in thisrespect. High intra-group communication within care farmer groups offers the advantage that
colleagues were able to understand a certain problem of a member that was discussed, but might
have a different view on it, perceived it less dramatic or offered alternatives to react to that
problem because they are less emotionally involved than family members. Even if care farmers
perceive no special burden it is helpful for them to communicate with colleagues about their work
because they are aware that others are interested in their work and their practical knowledge,
hence motivation to continue with this job increases.
I have no one to reflect my experiences with. Sometimes I tell my family members about that, they actually do not ask but sometimes I tell it simply because I need to tell it to someone you have toget rid of that, the job is indeed a little bit lonely. It is that you stand alone with the whole and if youhave setbacks no one is here who backs you up but that would be so important (Group of
AAT/AAP, low group social capital, care farmer, adopted, Irma F.)
I participate in this meetings because of the exchange of practical knowledge, that is supportive […]and the topics we talk about are diverse, once we are talking about the legal basis and at anothertime about dementia, learn and working projects and than we always talk about our personalexperiences with clients and about target groups […] and you can say hey guys that is the problem,
how would you deal with that. And somebody might have a completely different view on that withthe consequence that the problem is less bad. (Group of VUZB, high group social capital, carefarmer, adopted, Emma G.)
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Nevertheless, farmers seldom discuss with colleagues but rather with family members or care
professionals about emotional stress that occurs because of a lack of mental hygiene. Care
farmers are often not aware of the problem of a lack of mental hygiene and so they tend to cope
with that problem by themselves as long as possible and either stop care farming at a certain
point or learn from care professionals to counteract. Similar to that, the increasing time pressure
is a problem the care farmers tend to deal with him-/herself until the burden reaches a certain
point and forces them to find new arrangements, such as looking for volunteers or employees,
decreasing the number of clients, changing the client group or terminating the project.
Mentally I think, look, the body functions but äh, if I talk about myself, I was always a very strong person and now I have migraine and I think does it come from that? I do not know, may bebecause of the intensity? But well, I have to care for about that it works without me, too. If I woulddie tomorrow, it needs to continue without me, but this is not the case at the present time, I need tobe more replaceable in this respect. (Group of VUZB, care farmer, adopted, Cornelis & Grietje K.)
In order to deal with emotional burden that can occur when offering care at the farm, farmers
predominantly profit from regular contacts with care professionals and education, but also
through keeping contact with other key care givers of their client. This distributes responsibility
and provides them with knowledge about how to deal with clients’ symptoms etc. Besides this
indispensable contact to care professionals, the communication within a group of care farmers
increases the likelihood of exchanging necessary practical knowledge and also allows farmers to
talk to like-minded people, whereby this mutual interest in each other’s project and experiencesincreases not only their ability but also their motivation to continue with the project. The more
they identify as a group that interprets care farming in similar terms, the more likely it is that
farmers attend the meetings and profit from the communication with their colleagues. In contrast
to the importance of this intra-group communication and the amount of group-identity, the
group-solidarity seems to be less important in order to deal with emotional burden. Family
members are relieved as soon as farmers have the chance to communicate with their colleagues
about the care farming business and this aspect helps to stabilise the project.
Training about mental hygiene is currently only seldom provided for care farmers, hence they
tend to become aware of such a problem at a very late point in time and prefer to talk about that
rather with family members or care professionals than with members of their care farming union.
In general it cannot be said that the higher the group social capital, the lower the emotional
burden they perceive. Still, helpful practical knowledge can be exchanged and the contact to
colleagues rather functions as preventive help in less serious health questions. As soon as farmers
feel insecure in terms of clients’ health, they tend to contact care professionals and feel backed up when being in regular contact with the family doctor, clients’ key care givers and other care
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professionals who know the care farmer’s clients.
Beside emotional stress, the farmer also has to deal with other occurring tasks, like caring for the
client, doing the monthly settlements, adapting the farm, advertising the project or for care
farming in general etc. and perceives in this respect certain actors and forms of support to be
important, that is why this aspect is depicted in the next chapter.
6.3.3 Supporters and obtained and needed forms of support
when implementing care farming
In addition to the fact that farmers perceive emotional stress, they also need to fulfil many other
tasks in order to implement care farming. If day care is provided, they need to perpetually find
clients who visit the farm, but all care farmers need to do the monthly settlements, further adapt
the farm and often Dutch care farmers in this period feel increasing enforcement to
professionalise. Therefore they need to make investments or in the long term terminate the
project. The aim of the following chapter is to focus on working hypotheses 1 and 2 (see 3.4)
partly because presenting findings in terms of only the implementation period circumscribes it.
Care institutions and clients’ key care givers, and also the care farmer union and care farmers’
family members undertake important roles in order to go through this period of innovation. The
perceived importance of certain actors and the form of support that is provided by them is
visualised by the network diagram below. Keeping in mind the qualitative interpretation about
how farmers deal with emotional stress and being aware of those continuing tasks that need to be
fulfilled in order to offer care at the farm, but also the fact that farmers obtain a different amount
of social capital through their union membership and that they have different supporters, it
becomes obvious that the importance of certain actors must differ.
In the following diagram the care farmer (ego) is visualised through the pentagon in the centre of
this diagram and important supporters are presented by the label at the line’s end. The label firstly
shows the supporter, secondly, after a colon, the form of support that is provided by that certain
actor. The distance between the supporters and ego visualises the importance of the actors from
the viewpoint of the care farmers, meaning those supporters being located in the first concentric
circle near ego are perceived to be very important, those in the second to be important and those
in the third to be relevant. The color of the line and the line symbol explains to which
investigated group the supporters belong, which has a different amount of group social capital.
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Figure 7: The perceived importance of supporters and forms of support by care farmers during the
implementation period. [N = 32]
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Initially, a clear trend cannot be seen when considering the amount of group social capital of a
care farmer group someone is affiliated with and the importance of family members because
family members are perceived to be more important by those who obtain high group social
capital in contrast to those obtaining low. Still, family members are also perceived to be quite
important for the independents that obtain no group social capital at all. Nevertheless, high group
social capital relieves a care farmer’s family, which generally provides esteem and practical
support and while the relief may not be visible in the diagram above, it is an outcome of
qualitative analysis. As already explained in the previous chapter, high intra-group communication
within a care farmer union relieves a care farmer’s family because not only practical tasks need to
be fulfilled by care farmers, and their family members respectively, but also emotional burden for
the care farmer increases when offering care at the farm. Those who are affiliated with a group of
care farmers, profit from the exchange of practical knowledge and their mutual interest, therefore
all groups, regardless if they have a high or low group social capital, perceive the contact to their
colleagues to be at least relevant.
The lower importance of family members and the care farmer union is caused by the intense
support of the commercial union for members of Landzijde, but can also be explained by the low
social capital and low number of forms of support obtained by the contact to colleagues when
offering care at the farm. The fact that Landzijde continually undertakes a lot of business tasks
such as matching clients with farms, doing the monthly settlements and relieving farmers from
emotional pressure, due to sharing responsibility about the clients’ well-being with the care
farmer, explains the decreasing importance of other supporters. Also the contact to care
institutions is perceived to be less important for them because Landzijde holds the position of a
broker between care farmers and care institutions.
Similar to that also members of AAT/AAP do not obtain a lot of support through their
membership to a care farmer union, rather in contrast to Landzijde members they do not have
the support of a commercial organisation that compensates this aspect, which leads to the
expectation that family members’ importance should increase for members of AAT/AAP,
although this is not the case. This can only be explained by the fact that those who are currently
practicing animal assisted therapy often only have a few clients and reach minimal additional
income by that, so the low intensity of care at the farm might decrease the need for their family’s
support.
In contrast to that, those groups with a high group social capital also have a higher content of multiplexity, in regard to the relations between the care farmer and their colleagues. Information,
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practical and motivational support is perceived through the membership and regular contact to
this group, but also these groups provide social companionship only. As we already know these
aspects are quite important in order to stabilise the project in the long term. Supplementary
context information increases the understanding about why group social capital helps to relieve a
farmers’ family, but still this aspect is not visible within the network diagram.
The contact to care institutions is perceived to be varyingly important for all groups, although
different forms of support are obtained by the contact to them. Generally, Landzijde members do
not need to be in contact with care institutions directly in order to reach clients and also not in
order to receive feedback about how the client is doing, as Landzijde takes on these
responsibilities for the care farmers. As we can see, those Landzijde members who mentioned
care institutions to be important get some information about how to deal with clients from thembecause Landzijde compensates the rest. Members of AAT/AAP acquire their clients through
care organisations but do not obtain information related support or emotional support by these
contacts. In contrast to that, care institutions or care experts are often quite important in other
cases in order to get not only practical (client placement) but also emotional support. Information
about how to deal with the client is obtained also through that contact and therefore care
institutions or care experts are perceived to be an important supporter.
Combining results from verbal and visual data, it is clear that public relations are very importantin this period, especially in Austria because of a lack of awareness and knowledge about this new
practice. This is why independent care farmers from Austria perceive the media as an important
distributer of the idea. Public relations is also realised by the commercial organisation of
Landzijde, while the care farmer union VUZB also tries to advertise and to increase the awareness
about this topic within society. The regional union for general farming (farmer union) especially
promotes elderly care at the farm in Perg. Members from AAT/AAP in the present time lack a
supporter that enhances discussions and broadcasts the new form of therapy and this increases
difficulties in terms of client acquisition.
In order to deal with emotional stress and fulfil the tasks that occur when already practicing care
at the farm, care institutions, family members and the care farmer union still play an important
role. In other words, strong commitment and practical support from family members in order to
meet the requirements from the farming and care business is indispensable. A care farmer cares
oftern not only for clients, but also his or her spouse undertakes these tasks and is responsible,
for instance, for transporting clients when day care is offered, for dealing with monthly settlements, while sometimes the couple also shares daily working tasks with clients. Family
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members often need to have regard for clients at the farm and often undertake the tasks of
socialising with clients and in this respect their esteem support is necessary. A good connection to
a client’s key care givers and to care experts who know the clients and their present situation, who
get informed about daily occurrences regarding to clients’ well-being and who not only support in
terms of client acquisition but also decrease emotional stress through supervising care farmers
and providing them with expert knowledge, is in the long term incredibly important for stabilising
the project. The close contact to colleagues allows exchanging practical knowledge and decreases
farmers’ emotional burden because of the possibility to talk with like-minded people and the
feeling of belonging to a group. Support organisations can relieve family members’ and care
farmers’ daily job by organising monthly settlements, acquiring clients and taking responsibility
for the latter. In this respect farmers do not need close contact to care institutions and clients’ key
care givers. The next chapter addresses if this approach stabilises the project in the long term and
also the circumstances that lead to the termination of the project.
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66..44 Adoption or termination of the
project and relevant circumstancesIn order to understand what leads care farmers to terminate their project and which forms of
support they perceive to be important, but also if they lack support or if they even profit from the
preservation of group social capital are discussed. Findings about terminator types are also
presented in this chapter. Alternatively, types of adopters are characterised, thus the question
about differences and similarities between adopters’ and terminator’s circumstances are discussed
below. Therefore, working hypothesis 4 (see 3.4) is considered, which integrates network theory
and social capital theory, and which assumes the importance of both. It also addresses high group
social capital of a care farmer union and the fact that the more forms of support are obtained by
the care farmer, the more likely the stabilisation of the project.
6.4.1 Terminators’ circumstances and obtained forms of
support and of group social capital Above all, the focus is on 8 terminators coming from all investigated groups who perceived
certain forms of support and supporters to be important in order to develop and implement the
project for a certain time, thus the following network diagram demonstrates these findings.
Again the pentagon in the middle of the diagram represents terminator’s (ego), whereas the label
at the end of the line mark actors that are perceived to be varyingly important in certain periods
of the innovation, as they provide the form of support that is visualised after the colon. The latter
are distinguished according to van de Ven in the initiation, developmental and implementation
period and the lines that belong to a certain period of innovation are appropriately colored. The
concentric circles mark the importance of the supporters, so those within the first concentric
circle close to ego are perceived to be very important, those in the second concentric circle to be
important and those in the third concentric circle to be relevant.
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Figure 8: The perceived importance of supporters and of support by terminators during the process of
innovation. [N=8]
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Similar to those who adopted the project and successfully stabilised it, terminators predominantly
receive information about care farming from people they only meet occasionally (weak ties) and
get partly motivated to start up a care farm by certain initiatives, such as the initiative for elderly
care in Perg or by the conventional procedure of the commercial organisation of Landzijde that
contacts potential care farmers in order to motivate them to start up a care farm. Only one
person of those who terminated visited another care farm before starting up their own project. In
this respect all other cases miss this important additional information that would increase rational
expectations in terms of the new project.
Family members are in all periods of the innovation of most importance and are not only
standing behind the project but also practically supporting it. All other actors predominantly
provide the care farmer with information or support him or her practically. Social companionship with for instance emotional support etc., by those who could profit from a care farmer union, is
missing because terminators tend to seldom participate at meetings or regional studies and do not
want to invest time and energy for communication with colleagues. The care farmer union is
perceived to be important in the developmental period, while it is relevant only when already
offering care at the farm.
In general, multiplex relations were observed between care farmers to the care farmer union, to
care institutions and to family members. With the exception of the latter this is not the case withterminators. Those who are connected to care institutions only obtain clients from them but no
further emotional or informational support about how to deal with clients in the implementation
period, which is why these actors are perceived to be relevant only. In order to complement this
rather quantitative depiction about how important supporters are perceived during the innovation
process, verbal data was analysed in more detail.
This is based on nine qualitative interviews with care farmers who terminated their project and
are part of the sample of this research, except for care farmers from the group of AAT/AAP
because people who were asked for an interview and who already terminated working in the field
of animal assisted therapy refused an interview. Nevertheless, nine interviews with people who
obtained high and low group social capital, who had different national conditions and who were
differently supported in order to implement care farming were analysed in detail in order to
understand why this new practice was stopped and if similarities across the cases can be found.
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Group of Perg Group of VUZB Group of Landzijde Group of independent Sum of terminated projects
2 2 3 2 N=9
Table 11: Terminated projects within the sample of this research.
Two ideal types of care farmers who decided to terminate their project and who experienced
similar circumstances are depicted below, whereas findings have shown that Dutch care farmers
belong to the first and Austrian care farmers to the second type.
One type of terminator are those [N=5] whose initial investments in terms of farm adaption or
education were very low and none of them wanted to professionalise in this field. They
predominantly focused on agricultural tasks but felt increasingly forced by, for instance, Landzijdeto attend education courses or regional studies etc. All of them have in common a low interest in
investing time and energy in care farming tasks or to learn how to deal with clients. Additionally
how they experienced care farming did not meet to their expectations. They for instance expected
clients to be more self-dependent, able to work like volunteers or at least people who do not need
to be cared for all the time during their stay at the farm, thus the matching between farmers and
clients was negative. In addition to that, farmers tend to outsource business tasks such as dealing
with monthly settlements, were seldom in contact with clients’ key care givers or other care
institutions and even if a care farmer union membership existed, they did not really profit from it
as they did not participate in the meetings, or very seldom. Time burden increases due to the
necessity to deal with agricultural tasks and also the care for clients and to invest more time than
expected. A lack of knowledge about how to deal with clients and how to interpret their behavior
leads farmers rather to stop the care farm than to burden themselves with that because care
farming is not their first priority. They perceive the increasing demand to professionalise as
overregulation or rather become conscious that this hardly meets their personal interests. A clear
shift of priorities is often the reason farmers use to explain the termination, so they decide to
focus on agricultural tasks only, or stop care farming in addition to the reasons above because of
their retirement and missing business successors who are willing to offer care at the farm in the
future, too.
Helena de E. is 63 years old and has not attended certain education programs in terms of carefarming or care. One disabled male adolescent from the neighbourhood visited her farm for yearsand somehow grew to be a family member with time. Helena heard about the care farming initiativein Utrecht and became a member of VUZB through which she acquired three clients with
psychological problems. But her expectations that the relationship with these clients will be as goodas to the teenager from her neighbourhood were not met. She does not understand clients’ behaviorand complains about their unreliability, for instance, “and if he has to clear away the dung he uses to
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wear gloves” or “if it rains he does not visit the farm and if it is too warm he does not show up”.She terminates the project, does not want to find working tasks that are suitable for her clients andperceives clients as a burden. She did not have much financial income through their care tasks at thefarm and she never had further contact to the care farmer union VUZB or other colleagues andmentions not being interested in it. No investments were taken at the farm, VUZB only played arole when developing the project and acquiring clients and for some time she had a good
relationship to clients’ key care giver who organised all administrative tasks and with her she wasable to talk about the clients. But since this key care giver changed her job she did not have contactto clients’ new key care giver and decided to stop care farming because she feels too old to deal withthe clients, and in addition to that Helenas’ children will not continue the farming business in thefuture. (Group of VUZB, care farmer, terminated, Helena de E.)
The second type of terminators are care farmers [N=3] who are willing to invest in terms of
professionalisation and also needed to make a lot of initial investments in order to be allowed to
offer care at the farm. The majority attended education programs in order to become professional
caregivers, although insecurity in terms of how to deal with clients and high emotional burden
because of responsibility overload was perceived. Most of the cases show a combination of a
mismatch between farmers and their clients or of heavy burden through difficult clients or both.
The problem is being embedded in a professional team and feeling overchallenged in terms of
how to deal with clients. The increasing emotional stress that occurs from time burden, the role
conflict at the farm, a lack of private sphere and of mental hygiene are part of their problems.
They didn’t feel embedded enough in a professional team or were not able to distribute
responsibility about the client to further key care givers. Some of them were involved in a team of
care farmers and obtained high group social capital, the membership to the union was perceived
to be very important. They only attended, for instance, courses because they were affiliated with
this group and profited by organising business tasks together, although it wasn’t able to
outbalance all further difficult circumstances. Others did not have the chance to become affiliated
with a care farmer union and missed the exchange of practical knowledge and the feeling of
belonging to a group who deals with similar tasks, and also had to organise all business tasks by
themselves. This type in general decides to stop care farming at a very late stage in whichemotional burden reaches the absolute limit, thus farmers were not able to continue with the
project and had to terminate it due to their personal state of health.
And I think we both [couple of care farmer] already had a burn out […] and I thought I can not doit in the long term and when we decided to terminate the project I went into the kitchen, opened abottle of Chianti and you need to know I used to drink wine very seldom, but I sat down and took adeep breath […] and I felt how much pressure and responsibility and everything fell off me and this
was actually a great feeling. (Group of independent, care farmer, terminated, Claudia C.)
This second type of care farmer generally does not start again with this form of care, whiledeciding either not to fulfil farming tasks anymore and alternatively work as a conventional care
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giver by being embedded in a professional team, or refuses care and focuses on agricultural tasks
in the future only. In order to visualise differences between terminators’ and adopters’
circumstances and to understand which constellation destabilises or stabilises a project, the
situation and types of the latter are depicted below.
6.4.2 Adopters’ circumstances and obtained forms of
support
Under which condition current adopters would rather stop their project and which circumstances
lead them to continue and to stabilise it, is the content of this chapter. Therefore 29 projects were
analysed in detail in order to cluster them and to present similarities and differences across the
cases and types of adopters.
Group of VUZB Group of Perg Group of Landzijde Group of independent Group of AAT / AAP Sum of adopted projects
6 4 9 5 5 N=29
Table 12: Adopted projects within the sample of this research.
The first type of adopter [N=12] can be characterised as someone who has a quite good match
with clients, perceives not or only little emotional stress because of dealing with clients at the
farm and who tends to work very client oriented, meaning working at the client’s pace, looking
for suitable tasks. They adopt the farm in order to make it client friendly or respectively disability
friendly and invest in client canteens, toilets, living or day rooms. This type of care farmer does
not only invest in farm adaption but also gets educated in terms of care farming, is either double-
qualified as a care professional and farmer or the care farmer couple consults each other in terms
of that, or attends a two-year education course in care farming as it is offered in the Netherlandsby the Greenhorst Colleague. Sometimes this type additionally has a university degree. This type
perceives social recognition in terms of the project, offers predominantly day care and is in close
contact with clients’ key care givers or with the care institution clients are coming from. The
principal income is obtained through care at the farm, so the main focus is on care farming tasks
instead of on farming tasks. All who belong to this type have their own philosophy about how
this job should look and identify very much with being a care farmer.
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Within this type there are three subtypes, a.) the care farmer – an entrepreneur type – who
obtains no or very low group social capital. Farmers who belong to this type need to acquire
clients and to fulfil other business tasks themselves. The second subtype b.) only obtains low
group social capital and are members of Landzijde who attend regional studies and also
appreciate the contact to other care farmers, while profiting from the exchange of practical
knowledge. They partly have direct contract with clients but also receive their clients from
Landzijde and they also fulfil all administrative and business tasks (monthly settlements, contracts
with the clients or care institutions, advertisement etc.). Nevertheless, people who belong to this
group are critical members of Landzijde, do not want to lose their autonomy, want to influence
the direction this new practice is going in and tend to leave Landzijde in the long term in order to
continue more independently with their care farming business. The third subtype c.) obtains high
group social capital and are members of VUZB in Utrecht, profit from meetings with colleagues
and especially appreciate the possibility to exchange practical knowledge with colleagues. They
fulfil their administration work partly within the care farmer group but also tend to acquire clients
themselves successfully.
The second type of adopter [N=10] does not have or perceives less emotional stress through
this care practice and has a good match with clients who visit the farm for day care, also adapt the
farm to be client friendly and invest in education courses, are double qualified or attended a
special care farming course, such as animal assisted theraphy, although they reach additional
income only through this practice. They work very client oriented and are well connected to
clients’ key care giver and care institutions but can be further distinguished in three subtypes.
Subtype a.) obtains no or only low group social capital through the affiliation with a care farmer
group but is able to deal with business tasks including acquisition of clients and perceives social
recognition in terms of the project. Subtype b.) also obtains low group social capital only but is
unsuccessful in client acquisition and rather perceives non-recognition from society in terms of
care farming, feels very much as a loner and demotivated and does not have enough resources in
order to deal with all business tasks. A lack of awareness about their practice, that is
predominantly animal assisted therapy, and the fact that this form of therapy is not yet subsidised,
meaning that clients have to pay for it from their private money, increases the necessity to
advertise. Ironically, this type need supporters for that reason and would appreciate more contact
to a care farmer union. The third type c.) is affiliated with a group of care farmers and obtains
high group social capital that was helpful for client acquisition but also for starting up the farm
and for continuing with the project. Low recognition from society is perceived. Members of thisgroup would not have developed and professionalised in terms of care farming without their
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membership to a care farmer union. They also prove to be very client oriented and tend to fulfil
care tasks with high quality.
The third type of adopter [N=2] is also a member of Landzijde, who perceives no or little
emotional stress through this job and has a good match with his/her clients, but did not attend
special education programs, except for the regional studies four evenings a year. They also do not
adapt the farm but rather say „Sorry we are not disability friendly, these types of clients are not
suitable for us” (Group of Landzijde, care farmer, adopted, Henk & Alida K.). They are partly in
contact with clients’ key care givers, although Landzijde predominantly organises this aspect like
all administrative tasks. The match between the farmer and the client makes the only difference
between this type of adopter and type 1 of the terminators because care farming is only a small
part of their income and as soon as they perceive challenges and problems with clients or, forinstance, if education courses become a precondition for care farming, they tend to stop the
project instead of investing in these aspects.
The different types who adopted or terminated the project were characterised through categories
that proved to be relevant when analysing the process of innovation, hence dealing with business
questions, the demand and willingness to professionalise. Also emotional stress, which was
observed to be a special problem or challenge, was an applied category in order to distinguish
between adopters and terminators. In addition to that, obtained group social capital and obtainedforms of support were considered in order to subsequently oppose the findings. In order to
investigate if the access of more important forms of support, and of a higher group social capital
indeed stabilises the new practice, it is useful to compare the situation of adopters and of
terminators.
Differences between most terminators and adopters are related to the match between clients and
care farmers, the perceived emotional stress of care farmers and the willingness for
professionalisation in terms of education and/or farm adaption. These aspects are often strongly
connected with each other, because the less farmers know about clients’ needs and how to deal
with them, the more they expect clients to work autonomously, responsibly and as fast as
volunteers and interpret client’s behaviour as unreliable, subsequently farmers feel annoyed by
them. The terminator type 1 corresponds to the depiction above and does not reach primary
income through care tasks, with the consequence of increasing dissatisfaction and time burden
due to inconsistencies between expectations and reality. Only the demand of low initial
investments leads these farmers to start up a care farm, consequently it can not be said that allforms of support are as useful for care farming in the long term. Under Austrian conditions,
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where it is much more difficult to acquire clients and to become a care farmer without investing
in professionalisation, the terminator type 1 would rather not have started with this practice.
There is neither a lack of options to become an active member of a care farmer union and to
profit from group social capital nor a lack of special education programs. Care farmers who
belong to this type are not willing to invest and as soon as education courses are compulsory,
these farmers will hesitate to start or to continue with care farming.
Son: And all the rules from Landzijde, that annoys me a little bit, they increasingly force us to makecourses […]Mother: People increasingly start to complain about it that can be a hurdle for farmers and leadthem to not start up a care farm, too many rules exclude certain people. (Group of Landzijde, carefarmer, adopted, Theodora & Andre U.)
Nevertheless, this type of care farmer would have especially profited from excursions to other
care farms in order to enhance realistic perceptions about the practice before deciding to start
with it. However, in summary it emphasises that the option to obtain social capital or forms of
support does not necessarily mean that someone uses this resource, as in the case of the depicted
terminators, different personal interests are conflicting. It also means that higher initial
investments could stabilise care farming because those who are not willing to professionalise are
hindered to offer care at their farm, and as it is already emphasised, farm adaption in order to
save private sphere and education programs to enable farmers to better deal with clients decrease
the liklyhood of emotional stress, and in this respect stabilise projects in the long term.
The second type of terminator compared to adopters who were able to stabilise the project, show
the difference of incredibly high emotional stress. Although terminators are educated in care tasks
they are overchallenged in dealing with clients, and also burdened by a lack of private sphere, of
mental hygiene, an increasing role conflict and time pressure. In contrast to adopters, they do not
adapt the farm to save private sphere, have no clear time schedules and no clear rules about the
functional responsibility of all actors at the farm. This increases the likelihood for role conflicts
and of a lack of private sphere and although this type of care farmer is educated in care tasks, the
pressure of high responsibility is perceived in terms of the client. The latter relates to the fact that
in contrast to adopters, no or only too little continuing interaction between the care farmer and
clients’ key care giver or care institutions is practiced. Thus farmers are not able to distribute the
feeling of responsibility to the client, to receive feedback from care professionals on how clients
are doing and how to interpret or react to certain behavior patterns of the client. They search for
employees too late or they do not quit the contract to clients because of apparent mismatches. In
general people do not talk about emotional burden. In this respect high group social capital interms of intra-group communication is very important to enable a care farmer union to function
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like a self-help group, to reflect on experiences and to make those who struggle conscious about
which circumstances differ to those who are able to stabilise the project. Practical knowledge in
particular could be provided about how to save the private sphere.
Also, some forms of adopters profit from higher group social capital because of a lack of
knowledge about how to advertise, and also because of difficulties to find clients. In Austria it is
especially difficult to find clients that are able and willing to finance this form of therapy or care
themselves. Although it cannot be said that high group social capital generally stabilises the
project. While some farmers are quite successful as loners, others would need and profit from the
contact to colleagues and could indeed enhance the stabilisation of the project by being affiliated
within a group of care farmers. The communication within a care farmer group and also the
feeling of belonging to such a group enhances the probability that farmers are willing toprofessionalise because of perceived motivation and shared norms and values in terms of care
farming. It also increases the chance to influence the education program, to set the agenda of
regional studies and to adapt education programs appropriate to one’s own needs.
Nevertheless, further important forms of support in different periods of the innovation are not
necessarily similarly for all types of care farmers in order to stabilise the project. If commercial
organisations realise relevant business tasks, acquire clients and do the monthly settlements etc.,
this may be helpful for some types of care farmers in the short term, but it can also increasefurther problems if care farmers lose autonomy about their business, and subsequently destabilise
care at the farm in the long term. Some farmers already have enough support in terms of business
tasks by being in contact with colleagues or advertising together within a care farmer union.
Others do not even need this form of support but are equipped with the necessary
entrepreneurial features to do it successfully themselves. Especially for farmers from Austria it is
much more important to be affiliated with a group, because the high demand to professionalise
and the lack of adapted financial structures complicate the realisation of care farming. Some
farmers need the motivational support of colleagues to attend education courses in terms of care,
while others are willing and interested to do so without group motivation. A close contact to care
experts and clients key care givers is indispensable in all cases. In the long term this practice can
only be stabilised by an excellent cooperation between these actors and by shared responsibility
for clients. The combination of becoming educated in care tasks and the contact to client’s key
care givers and care experts are essential. Futhermore, care farmer unions can in this respect act
as a self-help group and decrease emotional stress. Finally, the esteem and practical support of
family members is a precondition for a care farming project that is based on a family business.
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7 RESUME AND FINAL
CONCLUSIONS
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It is not the first time that network analysis is applied in order to understand the development of
innovations, but this research validates the importance of applying qualitative methods in order to
enhance the understanding about how certain forms of support affect the course of innovation.
At first glance some adopters and terminators might have a similar support network, but only
qualitative analysis allows the necessary insight in order to understand if other aspects influence
adoption or termination or if the support network does not influence the course of an innovation
at all.
It was not known which challenges and problems care farmers experience when it comes to this
new practice and much less was known about the support network that is used in order to cope
with that. Innovation processes are messy and the stabilisation of a new practice is never
dependent on a few aspects only. Understanding the influences and reasons for the adoption ortermination of a project demands an understanding of the cases before common patterns of those
being able to stabilise or of the terminators can be found and proved through theoretical
saturation. In this respect it was inevitable to combine the narrative and guideline based interview
and to consequently apply thematic coding in order to fruitfully use the data that was collected
through qualitative methods.
Additionally, care farmers were not only asked to give an interview but also to fill in the network-
diagram (visual data). Only the combination of both allowed to understand and to interpretfarmers’ personal perceived importance of their support network and to allocate in which period
of the innovation certain forms of support and supporters are necessary for the stabilisation of
the project. Hence data triangulation was applied and enabled to focus on the dynamic of a care
farmer’s support network.
In this research, innovation, network and social capital theory were combined and proved to be
useful to reach new insights in the development of care farming. Similar to VAN DE V ENS (1999,
23) findings, the data of this research validate that innovations do not follow a simple linear
course or clear sequence of periods. The complex progression of events within a process of
innovation made it difficult to divide the course into periods, but applying the ideal typical
periods by van de Ven allowed to structure the process and to focus on commonalities across the
cases and special characteristics that occur within the course. This allowed emphasising necessary
forms of support and supporters and its varying importance in different stages of the process.
The combination of network theory and of social capital allowed on the one hand to focus on the
whole support network of a care farmer including their membership to a care farmer union, and
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on the other hand it enabled to investigate the importance of being in contact with colleagues and
obtaining group social capital in this respect.
By applying this methodological and theoretical approach it was possible to verify findings of
former innovation researches, for instance GRANOVETTER (1973) who knew this new form of
care or initiatives within a region is transferred by people someone meets only occasionally (weak
ties). Furthermore according to VAN DE V EN et al. (1999) a certain prehistory already influences
the later development of the new practice. Already being familiar with care tasks and certain client
groups is in most of the cases part of care farmers’ prehistory, meaning it was later shown that
care farmers were either already professional care givers or that they were experienced as a
caregiver for relatives or at least were directly confronted with certain forms of diseases or people
with special needs before they felt confident enough in order to anticipate starting up a care farm.In addition to that, findings confirm that esteem support from family members is indispensable in
the initiation period and that intra-group communication with colleagues increases orientation
and realistic expectations, while the first is a precondition for the further development of the
practice and the latter is additional profit only.
Similar to the theoretical characteristics as depicted by van de Ven et al. (1999), the
developmental period becomes much more confusing compared to the initiation period and
certain challenges and problems occur, wherefore care farmers need to contact a variety of different actors in order to cope with that. A certain demand to professionalise or business tasks
that need to be fulfilled can be challenging, although perceived problems differ depending on
someone’s obtained group social capital and forms of support, on national differences and also
on personal skills.
All care farmers can decrease transaction costs if they are affiliated with a care farmer union,
while common negotiations with potential cooperation partners increase the probability to
acquire clients, to get a hearing for one’s own interest and also to counteract low awareness and
recognition about care farming. Additionally, they can learn from each other’s experiences,
become enabled to develop common norms and values about care farming, while mutual
motivation increases the willingness for professionalisation. In addition to other relevant
supporters, with increasing group social capital in terms of intra-group communication and group
identity the union can act as a self help group not only in terms of business tasks but also if
emotional stress occurs.
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Nevertheless, for the stabilisation of the project, high group social capital is of varying
importance depending on care farmers skills, priorities and further supporters. Some types of care
farmers are better able to stabilise their project if the group fulfils business tasks, but others do
not need this form of support. Nevertheless, the stabilisation of care farming in the long term is
improved if the group appears as a central contact point for negotiations with stakeholders in
order to acquire clients, rather than just a single care farmer. A cooperation can be continued
independent from single care farmers stopping the cooperation. Some care farmers are excellent
caregivers but not adequately equipped with entrepreneurial skills and really need support in order
to acquire clients. However, they are also only motivated to professionalise through their feeling
of belonging to a group. These farmers in particular would profit and could rather stabilise their
project by being affiliation with a care farmer union and by obtaining practical and information
related support and also social companionship from the group. Although one could profit from
group social capital, it is not ensured that this support is recognised and used in order to stabilise
the project because of conflicting personal interests. Some care farmers do not want to invest
time for common meetings etc., hence the existence of supporters does not necessarily stabilise
projects.
Commercial support organisations at a regional level can relieve care farmers and their families in
terms of business tasks and the perceived responsibility for clients, but as long as only low group
social capital exists, this does not stabilise projects in the long term. In contrast to Austria’s care
farming experts, who rather appreciate a national support centre instead of a regional one, the
Dutch appreciate not only the development of regional support organisations but also explicitly
the commercial style of Landzijde. Findings of this research have shown that Landzijde has two
categories of members. Those who started because of a low demand of initial investments, who
as soon as they perceive problems and challenges, demand to professionalise etc. tend to
terminate the project. The commercial organisation of Landzijde proved to enable and motivate
people to easily start up a care farm. Because of the low group social capital, members do not
really have the feeling of belonging and they are not motivated to professionalise by the group
membership. The second category of members of Landzijde is willing to professionalise but does
not accept the loss of autonomy and the lack of co-determination. Consequently they rather
prefer to organise all business tasks themselves as soon as they stabilise their project in order to
increase their independence.
In summary, communication with colleagues is in all periods of the innovation useful, while it is
necessary at the beginning in order to increase orientation and realistic perceptions about the
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practice, it is important when developing such a project in order to exchange practical knowledge
with those who are care farmers themselves. The history of interaction also increases group
identity, while in times of developing and practicing care farming, this feeling of belonging to a
group is very important for the stabilisation of the project in the long term, as it motivates to
continue, it allows to develop common norms and values, relevant to care farming, to reflect
personal experiences and to feel obligated to provide a high quality of care. As long as care farmer
unions are organised at a regional level, it is more likely that its members regularly participate at
meetings and profit from the exchange of practical knowledge or from fulfilling business tasks.
Continuing contact to colleagues when already practicing care at the farm allows producing a
trustful atmosphere that enables the group to function as a self-help group when problems such
as emotional stress occur.
The general political culture becomes obvious by the comparison of the diverse development of
care farming in Austria and the Netherlands. While the rather expert controlled and
bureaucratically oriented Austria hinders the adaption of conventional care guidelines through a
trial and error practice, a learning oriented dealing with care farming was realised within the
Netherlands. Consequently a lower demand to professionalise was observed. National differences
in terms of the demand to professionalise exist and influence the perceived problems and
challenges by care farmers. Austrian care farmers have to invest in professionalisation at an early
stage and predominantly need to meet conventional care laws, while Dutch care farmers actually
feel increasingly forced to invest in education after they have already been practicing care at the
farm for years. Both, advantages and disadvantages are apparent in this case, because through the
experimental way of dealing with this new practice in the Netherlands it was possible to raise the
number of care farms, the awareness about the new practice within this country and to apply less
strict care guidelines as existing for conventional care institutions. Thus the latter enhances the
probability that care tasks can be fruitfully combined with agricultural tasks at family farms. That
also implicates disadvantages because in the long term care farmers tend to drop out for two
reasons. Minimal initial investments in terms of education training and farm adaption might lead
more people to start up a care farm, but it decreases the likelihood of stabilisation of the project
because as soon as care at the farm is practiced, either emotional stress increases because of a lack
of knowledge of how to deal with clients or a lack of private sphere etc., or the increasing
demand to professionalise at a later stage leads these people to terminate the project, as they are
not willing to invest resources for care farming.
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Beside professionalisation in terms of education and farm adaption, it is indispensable to be in
continual contact with clients’ key care givers and with care experts, because only this strategy
distributes responsibility and enhances farmers’ ability to accurately deal with their clients, thus
lowering emotional stress for care farmers. Care farming demands care institutions to comply
with care farmers and for instance to organise transports, to abandon care professionals who
accompany the client at the farm and they also have to pay for a farmer’s effort. In times of a
tight financial situation in which budget cuts in the health sector are usual, it is less likely that
cooperation can be realised. Subsequently competition between this alternative form of care and
of conventional care will increase.
Dutch experts assume it to be important for farmers to professionalise in order to become
competitive. But as findings of this research have shown, this is not enough for the stabilisationof the projects. Only continuing communication with care experts and clients’ key caregivers
relieve farmers, and helps them accurately deal with clients. This in combination with the shared
responsibility for the client enables people in the long term to successfully practice care farming.
Failing to acquire clients is not always connected to farmers’ lack of entrepreneurial skills or a lack
of communication with care institutions, but is also caused by hurdles, which are apparent
through the comparison of Austrian and Dutch care farms. As long as clients have to pay for care
at the farm from their private purse, it will be difficult to acquire them. Neither in Austria nor inthe Netherlands is the conventional care sector involved enough in order to find common visions
and possibilities to reach a win-win situation for both. The current trend is quite the opposite in
the Netherlands, a new rule determines that farmers do not reach payment when clients failed to
meet the appointment even if they have not informed the farmer. This increases insecurity for
farmers and it becomes less likely that farmers are able to plan with their income that is reached
through care tasks.
This research has shown that the need to contact a number of different actors increases in the
developmental period, but that implementing and stabilising the project in the long term is most
challenging. Only the cooperation between certain actors and following further actions will allow
the new practice to diffuse and to stabilise. First of all it is necessary to adapt conventional care
guidelines in order to allow farmers to offer care without following strict guidelines, as is the case
for conventional care places. Meetings between representatives of the health care and agricultural
sector at the national and regional level could help to find common visions and to define how to
reach a win-win situation for both. Only through a strong continuing cooperation between careexperts and care farmers can the stabilisation of the projects be enabled. Neither the Austrian
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course of professionalisation nor that of the Netherlands seems to be fruitful in the long term.
Farmers need to learn to become a care farmer but are never able to substitute care experts, and
in this respect it seems to be necessary to develop special education trainings for care farmers as
is already the case in the Netherlands, although it seems to be important to demand an affirmative
participation.
Both, Dutch and Austrian experts underestimate the role of regional care farmer unions with high
group social capital that have an impact on the stabilisation of projects for some types of care
farmers, but are added profit for all of them. Besides, we need to be aware that family members’
support is indispensable in the whole process of innovation. Still, the fact that these care farming
projects are based on family businesses destabilises the projects in the long term. As soon as there
are changes within the family, for instance, divorces, retirements, offspring and infirmity of elderly family members with the consequence of the increasing need to care for them, the
continuation of the project is subordinated. In the case of retirement, it is obvious that these
projects are closely connected to a person’s skills and preferences, because if there are no
qualified successors or if they are not willing to continue care farming and decide on other
income possibilities, the benefit of the whole investment is marginal.
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8 APPENDIX
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88..11 Care farmer interview guideline
Introduction
Questions marked with a * or as soon as people/organizations are mentioned in this section, it is
necessary to figure out the characteristic of the relationship with the following questions
Did these people/organisations influence the care farmer personally or were they in contact via
media like TV, magazines, radio etc. (Direct/indirect contact)
How would you describe the relationship to these people/organisations: Is their opinion
important to you? (Emotional closeness)
How often did the contact occur? How often did you meet this person during this time? How
often do you see/read/hear this media? (Frequency)
In which way did these people influence the later development of the project?
1. Narration request – Entrance question
It’s best if you just start to tell: How come you established social agriculture and who was
important therefore?
Contents that should emerge from the main narration
1.1 Initiation period: Anchor question
„Please think about the time before the development of your care farming project.“
1.1.1 Preconditions
= Contemplating retrospectively, were there preconditions that facilitated the development of
care farming on your farm at this later point in time?
= Was the influence of certain people/organisations of relevance when it came to the later
development of your care farming project? If yes, whose influence?
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1.1.2 Backgrounds – motifs for the care farming project
= How come you became interested in the special topic of social agriculture?
1.1.3 Information as a network achievement in the initiation period
Who from did you hear about the topic of care farming first before you even started to think
about developing a project yourself? *
= Which information did you get through these people/organizations on the topic of care
farming?
1.1.4 Shocks
= Was there something like an „acute trigger“ that lead to the decision to then implement the
care farming project? If yes, which trigger?
1.2 Developmental period: Anchor question
„Please think about the time when you had already decided to practice care farming.“
1.2.1 Network achievement in the developmental period
Who supports you in which way? Which kind of support is required in this phase?
= Please tell me how you preceded. Which steps were necessary to implement care farming on
your establishment?
= Which people/organisations were important in the process?
= Which support (service) did you receive through these people/organisations during the
development of your care farming project?
- Did you try to get specific information about care farming after you decided to implement
this project? If yes, where?
- Which bureaucratic steps were necessary to implement care farming? Who supported you
in this?
- Which operational changes (rebuilding of stable etc.) were necessary to develop carefarming? Who supported you in this?
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- Which personal changes (further education and training) were necessary to develop care
farming? Who supported you in this?
1.2.2 Barrage of ideas
= Did the ideas about how to develop a care farm change from the beginning until now?
- How did the ideas change?
- Who influenced this development of ideas?
- How did these people influence the development of ideas?
1.2.3 Challenges
= Did unexpected challenges occur in the developmental phase of this project?
- If yes, which challenges?
- How and by whom were you supported in managing these challenges? *
1.3 Implementation period: Anchor question
„Please think about the time after the developmental phase of the project, when the service of
care farming was already practiced on your farm“.
= Which people/organisations are involved in the practical implementation of the care farming
project?
= Which tasks do these people/organisations adopt?
- Family
- Cooperation partners
- Employees
- Others?
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1.3.1 Associations
= Which associations do you belong to or which (care farming) organisations are you a member
of?
Landwirtschaftskammer (Farmer’s Union)
- Representatives of the social sector
- National Association for Green Care Famers
- Membership in a local/regional green care association
- Member of a special training group
- Others?
= Please tell me, what is the advantage of being a member in the particular association or
organisation?
- How often are you in contact with the particular association?
- Does this contact occur personally or via communication media?
= What do you expect of the particular association/organisation?
1.3.2 Care Farmer
= Do you know other care farmers?
- How many?
- Are these care farmers from your region or other regions?
= Please tell me, what do you communicate with these care farmers?
- How often do you communicate?
- How do you communicate (by phone, internet, personally etc.)
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1.3.4 Cooperation partners
= How do you canvass for customers?
- Were these projects mediated by someone? If yes, by whom? *
= Who are your cooperation partners?
# Is it a matter of a formal or informal agreement?
# For which period of time was the arrangement agreed upon?
= Please tell me, how much trust do the actual and potential cooperation partners have in the
quality of your project?
- What do you think, why does the trust/mistrust exist?
= How much do you rely in your present cooperation partners/clients that they will keep on
using the service of your care farm?
# What do you think, why does the trust/mistrust exist?
= Are your cooperation partners willing to pay an appropriate compensation for your carefarming services?
1.3.5 Autonomy and social influence
= Do you have any kind of influence on the actual amount of financial compensation for your
care farming service?
- In which way can you influence the pricing?
= Do you feel restricted in any way in the constitution of your care farming project?
- If yes, by what?
1.3.6 Collective Identity
= How would you term your profession?
The following questions are only to be asked if a termination of the project took place.
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1.3.7 Termination: Anchor question
„Please think about the time when your project was terminated.“
= Why was the care farming project terminated?
= Please tell me, which people/organisations influenced you in the phase of the termination of
your project?
1.4 Success
1.4.1 Social Recongnition
= How did your social environment react to your care farming project in the course of theproject time?
- Family/friends
- Neighbours generally
- Farmers:
a) conventional
b) care farmers
- Cooperation partners
- YOUR association
a) General association: Landwirtschaftskammer, Bioverband, representatives of the social sector
b) Special association: Association for Green Care Farmers
- Municipality
= Do you feel acknowledged in your work as a care farmer?
- In which way do you experience acknowledgement/non-acknowledgement in your work?
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1.4.2 Economic success
= Did you have to incur expenditures to be able to practice care farming?
= Could you already cover your expenditures?
= Can you already estimate if
- the income could be increased by care farming compared to the previous year?
- # the overall agricultural income could be increased because of the social service offer?
- # the existence of the establishment is ensured because of care farming?
1.4.3 Therapeutic success
= Do you see obvious results in your clients by using the farm for therapeutic/pedagogic/etc.
purposes?
- Which results or progresses could you identify?
- # How long do clients already come to your place?
1.4.4 Personal success – Achievement of personal goals
= Which goals did you intend to reach personally by practicing care farming (the social project on
your farm)?
- Which of these goals have been achieved so far?
= Are you personally satisfied with the development of your care farming project?
- If yes, why/ If no, why not?
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1.5 Network diagram
The brown area denotes the pre-phase before you started to develop your care farming project.
Anchor question: „Think about the time before you started your care farming project.“ Who was
important in that time for the further development of the care farming project? Please namepeople or organisations that were very important, important, less important but relevant.
If this phase is completed, we merge into the next „green“ phase. The green area denotes the
developmental phase, after you have decided to develop the project. Anchor question: „Think
about the time when you had already decided to practice care farming and the actual
developmental phase had started.“ Who was important during that time so the project could be
developed? Please name people or organisations that were very important, important, less
important but relevant.
The blue area denotes the implementation phase that can be divided into the phase of adaption
and termination. It is the phase in which you could already apply or terminate the project. Anchor
question: „Think about the time after the development of your project when you could already
offer care farming on your establishment.“ Who was important for the practicing of the project
during that time? Please name people or organisations that were very important, important, less
important but relevant.
In the case of a termination of the project, please name people or organisations that were very
important, important, less important but relevant during the time of termination.
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Format change; network diagram: adapted from Kahn / Antonucci 1980.
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88..22 Short questionnaire care farmer
Age:
Gender: male female
Which kind of graduation do you have?
- Compulsory school - Higher School Certificate
- Vocational school - College
- Apprenticeship - Other:
Did you get special training/education for care farming that you did not mention above? If yes,
which:
Please tell your professional biography at a glance!
Tell me the size of your agriculture in hectare?
Which kinds of agriculture do you own? (arable farming, with/without keeping of animals, etc.)
Your farm is cultivated
- organically
- conventionally
Please describe the location of your farm:
- close to the city - far away from the city
- good public accessibility - bad public accessibility
- recreational area - no recreational area
Care farming is your
- principal occupation
- secondary occupation
How many clients frequent your establishment?
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Daily weekly monthly yearly
When was your care farming project launched?
Which kind of care farming is offered at your farm?
- Caring
- Employment
- Education
- Therapy
- Others:
Which target group frequents your farm?
- Mentally or physically disabled
- Long-term unemployed
- Immigrants
- Former drug addicts
- Former delinquents
- Adolescents with problems to integrate in social life
- Elderly
- Others:
Which field of duties do you undertake in your care farming project?
- Agricultural instruction
- Pedagogic duties
- Therapeutic duties
- Care duties
- Others:
Please make an estimation: How many care farming projects exist in your country?
Do you know of care farming projects that were terminated? Contact details:
Do you agree that I or a project partner can contact you if required in case of ambiguities?
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88..33 Expert interview guideline
Opening question
= You are a representative of the [organisation]. Please give me an overview about the duties of your organisation in terms of care farming.
- Please give me an overview about your personal duties in terms of care farming.
- Is there another organisation beside yours that is responsible for similar tasks?
- How can a care farmer become a member of [your organisation] (If membership is possible)
- number of members
- preconditions for membership
= What are the future aims of [your organisation] and why are these your aims?
Development of care farming in the country
= Please describe how care farming developed in your country.
= What kind of circumstances enabled the development and increase of care farming in your
country?
= What are the main problems within the care farming sector at the present?
= Are there judicial arrangements hampering the development of care farming?
= Please explain your point of view about what kind of political arrangements would be
important to increase the number of competent care farmers in your country?
Awareness of care farming
= How is the Dutch society aware of care farming?
- In which parts of the society is the term ( Sorgboerderijen , soziale Landwirtschaft) well known?
- Where is care farming discussed? (only in the scientific area, in the political area, in the public
area through the media etc.)
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- Are there still organisations/ social groups / people in special positions who are not enough
involved in the discussion in your point of view?
Acceptance of care farming
= How is care farming accepted in your country?
- Is it accepted as an important alternative to other therapies and work stations or is it understood
as a playground for some phantasts?
- Are there social groups, organisations and people in special positions who accept care farming
more or less?
- Do you see resistance against care farming from the social/ care sector?
Honoring care farmers’ activity
= Do you think that care farmers reach social recognition because of their work?
= From whom do they reach social recognition in your point of view? (Examples: Other farmers,
neighbors, the health care sector, the clients, the relatives of clients honor the activity of a care
farmer positively.)
Social rules
= What kind of duties are farmers allowed to undertake in the present in your point of view?
- Is it seen as normal that farmers offer care in your country?
= Since when have social duties been recognised as a part of agriculture?
= Since when has the social sector seen agriculture as an important place for people with special
needs?
Financial income and support
= Do you think it is important that care farmers invest a lot if they start up a care farm?
(education, internal investments)
= What kind of possibilities do care farmers have to get financial support for their investments
on a care farm?
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= Would you say care farming can be a good alternative income possibility for farmers?
- Is care farming interesting for small farms only?
= How is the stream of financial resources organised between clients or social organisations and
farmers? Please explain the possibilities.
- Clients can choose their work station and the government pays?
- Farmers can reach an accreditation, similar to a care institution?
- Other possibilities?
Therapeutic success
= Is there a proof of the health effects of care farming?
- What kind of health effects does care farming have?
= Is care farming important for special target groups?
Preconditions to become a care farmer
= What has to be provided by a “good” care farming project?
(Educated farmers, business plan, special abilities, safe environment etc.)
= Do you think farmers need a support network for developing a care farm? Why do you think
so?
= What should be the duties of a care farmer in your point of view?
Phases (practical experience)
= If a farmer wants to start up a care farm: How does the process of this innovation usually
develop?
- Are there special phases within the innovation process where farmers need your support most?
- When do farmers need what kind of support most?
- What are the main difficulties if someone starts up a care farm? -
What are the main questions of farmers?
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= Who offers what form of support in your country? -
Which organisations offer support?
- What form of support is provided? (education training, information about how to start a care farming
project, advertisement etc.)
Future = Do you see a problem or a development which could influence the care farming sector negatively or
positively in the future?
= Do you think a special sort of clients could profit from the care farming sector in the future; to say it
in other words, is there a potential seen in a special client group to develop the care farming sector?
= Do you think care farming will be more important in the future for some reason?
= What are your future aims regarding to care farming?
= What do you think are important actions regarding to care farming that should be taken in the
future?
= How do you think the care farming sector will look like in 20 years?
= Is there an aspect which I haven’t mentioned yet but which would be important to mention?
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88..44 Interview appendix – Protocol
The model for the appendix to the interview was taken and adapted from (K VARDA 2000,S:191;FROSCHAUER 1992,S:42; L AMNEK 1993,S:98f).
SUBSEQUENT TO THE INTERVIEW:
IP1:Name:.......................................................................................................................
Profession:.........................................................................................................................
Function in the process:..................................................................................................
IP2:Name:.......................................................................................................................
Profession:.........................................................................................................................
Function in the process:..................................................................................................
Date:........................................................................................................................
Time:.......................................................................................................................
Duration of the interview:.................................................................................................
Place:.....................................................................................................
How were you welcomed? .....................................................................................
Which visual impression does the farm leave?
Did you have to wait for the conversation? ........................................................................
PRESENCE OF THIRD PARTY..................................................................................
BEHAVIOR OF THE INTERVIEWEE:
· open
· relaxed
· nervous
· long periods of thinking
· spontaneous answers
· difficulties of comprehension (continuous requesting)
· wary
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other:....................................................................................................................
There were special difficulties with the following question:
...................................................................................................................................
THE RESPONDENT FOLLOWED THE INTERVIEW:
· With large interest (asked questions, enjoyed the interview)
· With interest (kept to the point)
· Rather indifferent (was easily distracted, was unconcentrated)
· Impatient (wanted to stop)
Off records – Was there a further talk about relevant topics after the recorder was turned off?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Informal conversation before or after the interview:
...................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................
List of assumptions to the interview (theses):
...................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................
Own behavior (self-evaluation):
...................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................
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88..55 Operationalisation of forms of
social capital
Score Form of social capital Care farming group
The Netherlands Austria
LZ VUZB Perg AAT/AAP Independent
Intra-group communication
0 direction of no information flow 0
1 information-flow rather observe than exchange information 1 1
2 exchange information 2 2
0 who sets the head of organization 0 0
1 agenda? the group of farmers themselves 1 1
0 place of meetings no meetings 0
1 direct meetings not at care farms 1 1
2 direct meetings at care farms 2 2
0 frequency of no meetings 01 meetings meetings but no continuing meetings 1
2 continuing meetings 4 times a year 2
3 continuing meetings 5 times a year 3
4 continuing meetings 6 times a year 4
1 content of how someone starts up the care farm 1 1
1 communication problems and challenges perceived 1 1 1 1
1 how someone copes with problems and challenges 1 1 1 1
1 how someone adapts the farm 1 1 1 1
1 future aims of the group 1 1
1 disease patterns and how to deal with clients 1 1 1 1
Total amount of social capital in terms of intra-group communication 8 14 15 7 0
Table 13: Operationalisation of intra-group communication at a group level.
Form of social capital Criteria for the evidence of a certain characteristic
Intra-group communication
direction of no information flow based on statements of some members of the group
information-flow rather observe than exchange information Criteria: if direct meetings are organized and if the core theme of
exchange information the meeting is a lecture or the discussion within the group
who sets the head of organization based on statements of some group members of the group. Criteria: it is mentioned that
agenda? the group of farmers themselves the agenda is set by the head or equally by all group members
place of meetings no meetings based on statements of some group members about the existence of direct
direct meetings not at care farms meetings and about the place of meetings
direct meetings at care farms Criteria: existence of meetings and place of meetings
frequency of no meetings based on statements of some group members about the number
meetings meetings but no continuing meetings of meetings during a year
continuing meetings 4 times a year Criteria: existence of meetings and number of meetings
continuing meetings 5 times a year
continuing meetings 6 times a year
content of how someone starts up the care farm based on general statements of some group members about the content of
communication problems and challenges perceived communication e.g. "We use to talk about how we cope with
how someone copes with problems and challenges problems such as how to acquire clients"
how someone adapts the farm Criteria: mentioned contents of communication
future aims of the group
disease patterns and how to deal with clients
Table 14: Operationalisation of intra-group communication and criteria for the evidence of a certain
characteristic.
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Score Form of social capital Care farming group
The Netherlands Austria
LZ VUZB Perg AAT/AAP Independent
Group identity
0 homogeneity members of the group do not have the same client group 0
1 members of the group have partly the same client group 1 1 1
2 members of the group have the same client group 2
0 members of the group do not offer the same care tasks to clients 0
1 members of the group offer the same care tasks to clients 1 1 1 10 there are differences within the group in terms of 24hours care or day care 0
1 there is homogeneity within the group in terms of 24 hours care or day care 1 1 1 1
0 history of 0 years 0
1 interactions 5 years 1
2 7 years 2 2
3 10 years 3
0 group members attended the same education course not in the same time 0 0
1 goup members atttended the same education course in the same time 1 1
0 common aims the group of farmers has common future aims 0 0
1 the group of farmers do not have common future aims 1 1
0 common no 0 0
1 homepage yes 1 1 1
Total amount of social capital in terms of group identity 6 6 10 6 0
Table 15: Operationalisation of group-identity at a group level.
Form of social capital Criteria for the evidence of a certain characteristic
Group identity
homogeneity memb er s o f t he group do n ot ha ve t he sa me cl ien t g roup ba sed on th e i nt ervi ew w it h ea ch m emb er o f t he sa mp le
memb er s o f t he group h ave p ar tly th e s ame cli en t group Cr it er ia : si mi la ri ti es an d di ff er en ces i n t erms of t he
members of the group have the same client group client group, care tasks and the time of care
members of the group do not offer the same care tasks to clients
members of the group offer the same care tasks to clients
there are differences within the group in terms of 24hours care or day care
there is homogeneity within the group in terms of 24 hours care or day care
history of 0 years Criteria: the maximum possible duration of
interactions 5 years interactions by using the duration between the date
7 years when the union was founded until 2009 when the
10 years interview was given by members of the group
group members attended the same education course not in the same time based on the interview with each member of the sample. Criteria: similarities
goup members atttended the same education course in the same time and differences in terms of the education course and time of participation
common aims the grou p of farmers has common futu re aims based on statements of some members of the group. Criteria named or not named common
the grou p of farmers do not have common futur e aims aims e.g. "We plan to become an umbrella organization"
common no Criteria: existence of a homepage
homepage yes
Table 16: Operationalisation of group identity and criteria for the evidence of a certain characteristic.
Score Form of social capital Care farming group
The Netherlands Austria
LZ VUZB Perg AAT/AAP Independent
Group solidarity
0 role- multiplexity no member of a care farming union or organization 0 0
1 member of the same care farming union or organization 1 1 10 no member of the same region 0 0
1 member of the same region 1 1 1
0 no member of the union for general farmers
1 some of the group are a member of the union for general farmers 1 1
2 all members of the group are a member of the union for general farmers 2 2 1
0 group members did not attend the same care farming education course 0
1 some of the group attended the same education course 1 1
2 all members of the group attended the same education course 2 2
0 network- density not a member of a group 0
1 members of the group know each other partly 1
2 all members of the group know each other 2 2 2
1 group-support information-supply in terms of how to start up a care farm 1 1 1
1 public relations 1 1
1 networking with relevant organizations (care industry, public authority ...) 1 1
1 negot iat ing with r elevant organizati ons (c are indust ry , public authority...) 1
1 adapting quality standards 1 1
Total amount of social capital in terms of group solidarity 5 10 13 7 1
Table 17: Operationalisation of group-solidarity at a group level.
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Form of social capital Criteria for the evidence of a certain characteristic
Group solidarity
role- multiplexity no member of a care farming union or organization based on the interivews with each member of the sample
member of the same care farming union or organization Criteria: shared roles
no member of the same region
member of the same region
no member of the union for general farmers
some of the group are a member of the union for general farmers
all members of the group are a member of the union for general farmers
group members did not attend the same care farming education course
some of the group attended the same education course
all members of the group attended the same education course
network- density not a member of a group Criteria: the number of members, place of meetings and statements of some members
members of the group know each other partly of the group if they assume that all members know each other or not
all members of the group know each other
group-support i nforma tion-supply in t erms of how to st ar t up a care fa rm based on general sta tement s of some members of the group that the group
public relations supports each other in terms of … e.g. "We in general support each other
networking with relevant organizations (care industry, public authority ...) in terms of public relations"
negotiating with relevant organizations (care industry, public authority...) Criteria: mentioned group support
adapting quality standards
Table 18: Operationalisation of group solidarity and criteria for the evidence of a certain characteristic.
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88..66 List of abbreviations
AAT/AAP: Animal assisted therapy and animal assisted pedagogic
Landelijk Steunpunt Landbouw en Zorg: Former national support center for care farming
in the Netherlands that was closed in January 2009
Landzijde: Commercial care farming support organization that is located in North Holland
LFI: Ländliches Fortbildungsinstitut, Austrian education institute for rural affairs that offers
courses for farmers
LTO Nederland (Land- en Tuinbouw Organisatie): The Dutch Federation of Agriculture
and Horticulture, an entrepreneurial and employers’ organisation
LWK : Landwirtschaftskammer, Austria’s general union for farming
ÖKL: Österreichisches Kuratorium für Landtechnik und Landentwicklung, Austrian Council
for Agricultural Engineering and Rural Development
TAT (Tiere als Therapie): animals for therapy, Austrian union that is responsible for the
investigation and promotion of the therapeutic impact of the human/animal relationship
VUZB („Vereniging Utrechtse Zorgboeren“) is a non-commercial Dutch care farmer union
that is located in Utrecht
Citations of interviewed care farmers are anonymized, fictional names are used and additional
knowledge about to which group they belong and if they already terminated or adopted theproject is mentioned at the end of each quotation.
Citations of interviewed experts are not completely anonymised, meaning not the name of
experts but which organisation they represent is mentioned.
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88..77 List of tables
TABLE 1: NUMBER OF CARE FARMS COMPARED TO THE TOTAL NUMBER OFFARMS IN PERCENT. IN: SOFAR-RESEARCH GROUP, 2007, 47........................... 22
TABLE 2: CONCEPTS OF NETWORK STRUCTURE WITHIN EACH SIX MODES OF
NETWORK ANALYSIS" (BURT 1980, 80)......................................................................... 49
TABLE 3: CONTENT RELATED EFFORTS OF SOCIAL RELATIONS. AN
OVERVIEW OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF SOCIAL SUPPORT (CF. HOLLSTEIN,
2001, 32-34).................................................................................................................................. 54
TABLE 4: INDICATORS AND CHARACTERISTICS IN TERMS OF INTRA-GROUP
COMMUNICATION................................................................................................................ 66
TABLE 5: INDICATORS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF GROUP IDENTITY.............. 67
TABLE 6: INDICATORS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF GROUP SOLIDARITY......... 69
TABLE 7: SELECTED CASES OF CARE FARMING PROJECTS IN AUSTRIA AND THE NETHERLANDS............................................................................................................ 81
TABLE 8: METHODS AND TECHNIQUES CHOSEN FOR DATA COLLECTION
AND ANALYSIS. ...................................................................................................................... 82
TABLE 9: SIZE OF CARE FARMS WITHIN THE SAMPLE IN HECTARE. ................. 121
TABLE 10: AGE OF CARE FARMERS WITHIN THIS SAMPLE IN PERCENT.......... 122
TABLE 11: TERMINATED PROJECTS WITHIN THE SAMPLE OF THIS RESEARCH.
...................................................................................................................................................... 184
TABLE 12: ADOPTED PROJECTS WITHIN THE SAMPLE OF THIS RESEARCH... 186
TABLE 13: OPERATIONALISATION OF INTRA-GROUP COMMUNICATION AT A
GROUP LEVEL....................................................................................................................... 218
TABLE 14: OPERATIONALISATION OF INTRA-GROUP COMMUNICATION AND
CRITERIA FOR THE EVIDENCE OF A CERTAIN CHARACTERISTIC. ........... 218
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TABLE 15: OPERATIONALISATION OF GROUP-IDENTITY AT A GROUP LEVEL.
......................................................................................................................................................219
TABLE 16: OPERATIONALISATION OF GROUP IDENTITY AND CRITERIA FOR
THE EVIDENCE OF A CERTAIN CHARACTERISTIC.............................................219
TABLE 17: OPERATIONALISATION OF GROUP-SOLIDARITY AT A GROUP
LEVEL........................................................................................................................................219
TABLE 18: OPERATIONALISATION OF GROUP SOLIDARITY AND CRITERIA
FOR THE EVIDENCE OF A CERTAIN CHARACTERISTIC...................................220
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88..88 List of figures
FIGURE 1: THE EMOTIONAL NETWORK BY KAHN AND ANTONUCCI, 1980
(SOURCE: SIMULATED ILLUSTRATION)...................................................................... 87
FIGURE 2: NETWORK DIAGRAM (SOURCE: ADAPTED FROM KAHN AND
ANTONUCCI, 1980)................................................................................................................. 88
FIGURE 3: GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION OF AUSTRIA AND THE NETHERLANDS
WITHIN THE EUROPEAN UNION.................................................................................. 95
FIGURE 4: FORMS OF CARE WITHIN THIS SAMPLE IN PERCENT. [N=32]...........122
FIGURE 5: THE PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORTERS AND OF FORMS
OF SUPPORT BY CARE FARMERS DURING THE INITIATION PERIOD.
[N=32] ........................................................................................................................................ 139
FIGURE 6: THE PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORTERS AND FORMS OF
SUPPORT BY CARE FARMERS DURING THE DEVELOPMENTAL PERIOD.[N=32] ........................................................................................................................................ 163
FIGURE 7: THE PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORTERS AND FORMS OF
SUPPORT BY CARE FARMERS DURING THE IMPLEMENTATION PERIOD.
[N = 32] ...................................................................................................................................... 177
FIGURE 8: THE PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORTERS AND OF SUPPORT
BY TERMINATORS DURING THE PROCESS OF INNOVATION. [N=8] ......... 182
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