Mr. Joseph McCrohan:

I work with the South Kerry Development Partnership and manage the Kerry Social Farming project. With me today is Eamon Horgan, who is a host farmer and chairperson of the agriculture working group, and Brendan O'Sullivan, who is a participant.

Kerry Social Farming has been in operation since 2013 and seeks to innovatively target both an increasingly marginalised farming community and people with a range of disabilities by promoting social inclusion for them within their own communities. Working alongside these groups has been at the heart of the project.

At its heart, the process in Kerry is straightforward. Those men and women who choose to avail of social farming come to the farm one day a week for a few hours, a half day or a full day - whatever is agreed between them and the host farmer. Where necessary, their support worker accompanies them. The farm remains a working farm and normal day-to-day tasks are carried out, with time for a cup of tea or lunch. Social farming through the Kerry voluntary model of social farming continues for as long as the participant and the farmer wish. Brendan has been on the same farm for 13 years now. It is a voluntary model, so neither the host farmer nor the participant is paid, and it is not limited in time. We feel the voluntary model is a strength of social farming.

In Kerry today, we have 40 active host farms. Since 2013, some 81 farmers have taken participants, and there are 60 participants out on farms this week. Our vision is to promote and operate social farming in Kerry as a viable option for achieving improved quality of life, greater social inclusion and community networking for people with disabilities and those encountering mental health difficulties. Our mission is to work collectively in a shared service with the social care service providers, people with disabilities, local communities, local development companies, national and local government, the business community, the farming community and farm families. We have a wide variety of project partners but it takes a lot of work to co-ordinate the project. Our project partners include the Kerry Parents & Friends Association, St. John of God services, the National Learning Network, Inspired, NOVAS disability service, Resilience Healthcare, RehabCare, Enable Ireland, Down Syndrome Kerry and Cúnamh Iveragh. These are the people who send us participants. The two local development companies involved are South Kerry Development Partnership and North East West Kerry Development. The partners also include host farmers and social farming participant representatives. The HSE, Kerry County Council and the Kerry Education and Training Board are all involved and provide funding towards the project.

The key funding is provided by the Department of agriculture. For our project, we receive €100,000 a year. We are very grateful to the Department of agriculture and the various Ministers back through the years. However, we cannot take the project forward and take on the extra 81 people who want to get placements on farms until we get more money. We have received funding from Kerry AgriBusiness and Kerry Dairy Ireland to facilitate our project.