By Kate Mudge, Co-Director, Care Farming Network
In a sun-soaked field in Tennessee, a group of adults with developmental disabilities tend to rows of vegetables at Old School Farm. In Maryland, veterans recovering from PTSD care for honeybees at Mission Beelieve. At Desert Survivors in Tucson, adults with disabilities gain work experience at a native plant nursery and commercial landscaping business. Outside Austin, clinical therapists work with trauma survivors, learning to empower themselves by caring for land, gardens, and farm animals at Simple Sparrow Care Farm.
These aren’t isolated stories- they’re part of a growing national movement that redefines what a farm can be. It’s called care farming, and at its heart is a bold idea: that farms can cultivate not just food, but health, purpose, and belonging.
And leading this movement is Care Farming Network, a member-based network that is pioneering a movement and growing a community of care farms across the United States.
A Pioneering Movement Takes Root
With roots in many countries, particularly across Europe, where care farming is widely integrated into health and social care systems, the practice has become a recognized, supported, and often publicly funded model of care. The United Kingdom alone boasts nearly 400 care farms, many of which receive government contracts to provide therapeutic services, vocational training, and social support. In countries like the Netherlands, care farming is embedded into long-term care strategies and considered a viable alternative to institutional or clinical settings.
By contrast, care farming remains relatively new and underrecognized in the United States. While interest is growing, most U.S.-based care farms operate without stable funding, formal recognition, or access to the supportive infrastructure their European counterparts enjoy. Many care farmers here face systemic barriers,including limited awareness among policymakers, scarce research, and a lack of sustainable funding mechanisms.
The Care Farming Network was launched in 2021 to change that. Hosted by Maryland’s Red Wiggler Care Farm, a trailblazing care farm with a 30-year history of employing adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to grow vegetables, CFN quickly became the first and only national initiative dedicated to supporting care farmers across the United States. Today, CFN includes more than 300 care farms in its online directory, a remarkable increase from just 13 farms listed in 2021.
“Care farming shouldn’t be the best-kept secret in agriculture,” says CFN Co-Director Kate Mudge. “It should be a visible and viable model for healing, inclusion, and community resilience in every county in America.”
To that end, CFN provides mentorship for new and aspiring care farmers, one-on-one consultations, monthly virtual gatherings on topics like therapeutic beekeeping and fundraising for a care farm, a growing online resource library, networking opportunities such as farm tours and meetups, and an annual conference that unites care farmers together from across the continent.
Why the U.S. Needs a Care Farming Network
In a country facing overlapping crises such as rising rates of mental health challenges, social isolation, disconnection from the natural world, and lack of inclusive employment opportunities, care farms offer an integrative solution.
Care farms support a wide range of individuals, including those with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD), trauma survivors, veterans, youth, people in recovery, and others who have been historically marginalized or excluded.
More than just farms, these are communities of care, where someone might find meaning through planting seeds, feeding animals, joining a harvest, or engaging with a practitioner on a farmstead. For many, care farms provide access to connection, skill-building, empowerment, and dignity in ways traditional services often cannot.
From ServiceNet’s Prospect Meadow Farm, which hires adults with developmental disabilities to grow shiitake mushrooms in Massachusetts, to Greens Do Good, New Jersey’s first vertical farm, which provides meaningful job training and employment for teens and adults with autism, care farms are transforming lives.
And yet, as Side Effects Public Media reports, there are few established funding streams or policy frameworks in the U.S. to support these efforts. Care farmers often struggle for legitimacy, resources, and connection.
That’s where CFN steps in to provide the infrastructure, community, and advocacy that care farmers need to thrive. As one CFN member put it: “I had not heard of the term ‘care farming’ until I found CFN. What an incredible relief to find other people doing what I was doing, feeling the same pain points, and having the same joys.”
Looking Ahead: A Care Farm in Every County
The Care Farming Network’s vision is as clear as it is ambitious: a care farm in every U.S. county. This vision is grounded in the belief that everyone, regardless of ability, background, or circumstance, deserves meaningful work, supportive community, and access to a care farm in their community.
To realize this, more research is needed to measure outcomes and establish care farming as a legitimate, fundable practice within U.S. systems of care. While anecdotal evidence is powerful, quantitative studies can validate what care farmers and participants already know: that nature and farm-based interventions improve mental health, build resilience, and foster belonging.
CFN is working alongside academic partners, researchers, and care farms to close this gap. For example, we celebrate the work of the UC Davis Green Care Lab, researching animal behavior, stress physiology, and behavioral neuroendocrinology, and Simple Sparrow Care Farm in Texas, whose ongoing research efforts explore how “care farming WORKS.” These and other projects are helping to build the foundation for broader recognition and systemic support.
The Care Farming Network is also actively collaborating with disability rights advocates, veteran farming organizations, mental health professionals, researchers, sustainable farming associations, academics, and peer-led networks across the country. Together, we are shaping a more inclusive, equitable future for farming, one where care is considered just as essential as cultivation.
The seeds have been planted. The ground is fertile. And with the Care Farming Network nurturing this movement, a new kind of agriculture is growing in America- one rooted in belonging, rising with hope.
