Yangju City is promoting the "Healing Agriculture Related Organizations Linkage Activation Project" to improve the quality of life for citizens and create sustainable revenue sources for healing farms. Gyeonggi Yangju City (Kang Suhyeon) is promoting the "Healing Agriculture Related Institutions Linkage Activation Project" to improve the quality of life for citizens through public care services for the elderly and socially vulnerable groups by supporting healing programs operated at healing farms for users of related institutions managing people with disabilities, depression, and elderly dementia patients, and to create sustainable revenue sources for healing farms.
Healing agriculture services involve using healing agricultural resources such as plants, animals, rural culture, and environment, as well as healing agricultural facilities, to conduct education or systematically carry out designed programs aimed at psychological, social, and physical health recovery and enhancement.
According to Yangju City on the 20th, the "Healing Agriculture Related Institutions Linkage Activation Project," conducted in cooperation with local healing farms and related institutions such as the Comprehensive Welfare Center for the Disabled and the Mental Health Welfare Center, operates various healing programs for about 530 participants from April to November, including △ handkerchief flower dyeing △ learning about healing plants △ harvesting herbs and making tea △ barefoot walking in pumpkin fields and pumpkin cooking.
The Yangju Agricultural Technology Center has been systematically selecting and nurturing rural healing farms (Malgeunmul Farm, Maenggol Village, Sangsang Farm, Yangmyeong Farm, Wonhak Farm, Tichayeon) since 2019 to promote social services of healing agriculture, and has signed business agreements with the Mental Health Welfare Center, Dementia Safety Center, Comprehensive Welfare Center for the Disabled, and Okjeong Comprehensive Social Welfare Center to support healing agriculture programs.
Additionally, healing farms are equipped with various measurement devices such as handgrip dynamometers, InBody analyzers, brainwave, and pulse wave devices, allowing verification of changes in participants' physical vitality and stress levels through pre- and post-program measurements, thereby proving the effectiveness of the programs.
Director Kim Hwa-eun stated, "Healing agriculture activities show clear effects in helping socially vulnerable groups with physical, cognitive, and emotional rehabilitation and recovering a healthy daily life," adding, "We will strive to expand the cooperative system with welfare institutions to activate healing agriculture in our city and improve stable income for farms, thereby promoting the multifaceted value of agriculture."
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