Rural Development Administration:
"Combining Healing Agriculture with Medication
Enhances Improvements in Psychiatric Symptoms"
A study has shown that healing agriculture, such as growing plants, has actual effects on alleviating symptoms of schizophrenia and reducing depressive symptoms. In the case of depressive symptoms, combining medication treatment with healing agriculture programs resulted in a 30% reduction in feelings of depression.
On the 16th, the Rural Development Administration announced that its research team has developed two types of healing agriculture programs for patients with schizophrenia and those at high risk of depression.
An official from the Rural Development Administration explained, "As the prevalence of mental illnesses continues to increase, the use of healing agriculture as a non-pharmacological treatment method based in local communities is gaining attention. Accordingly, the Rural Development Administration has focused on healing agriculture as a non-pharmacological psychological support technique that can complement the existing medication-centered treatment for mental illnesses, and has proven its effectiveness through field verification at medical institutions."
The research team developed two healing agriculture programs for patients with schizophrenia and those at high risk of depression (individuals in a state likely to develop clinical depression).
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder in which the ability to perceive and judge reality is severely distorted. It presents positive symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, illogical thinking, and bizarre behavior; negative symptoms including reduced emotional expression, apathy, social withdrawal, mutism, and anhedonia; as well as general psychopathological symptoms like depression, anxiety, decreased concentration, and sleep disturbances. The 'Positive Psychology Model Program' for patients with schizophrenia was designed to help them recover emotions such as immersion and happiness and discover their strengths through the process of cultivating and managing plants.
As a result of applying the program, the group of schizophrenia patients who participated in healing agriculture showed a 10% reduction in negative symptoms and a 23% decrease in general psychopathological symptoms compared to the group that received only conventional medication-centered hospital treatment.
The 'Cognitive Behavioral Strategy Program' for those at high risk of depression is a program that links the plant life cycle?from sowing, harvesting, to post-harvest utilization?to the users' lives, encouraging the transformation of negative or distorted thoughts into positive ones. As a result, the high-risk depression group also experienced a 30% reduction in feelings of depression compared to before applying healing agriculture. Relative theta waves (RT), which indicate emotional stability and improved inner reflection ability, increased by 29%, and relative alpha waves (RA), which represent psychological stability and stress relief, increased by 18%.
This verification was conducted from September 2023 to July 2024 with about 170 participants (inpatients and outpatients) at the National Center for Mental Health, Jeonbuk-do Maumsarang Hospital, and Shinsegae Hospital. Participants were divided into two groups: one received only conventional treatment, while the other combined conventional treatment with healing agriculture programs once a week for a total of 10 to 12 sessions.
The Rural Development Administration will begin full-scale operation of healing agriculture programs this month at nine mental health promotion institutions in Jeonbuk-do, synthesizing the results of this verification and the activities of the National Policy Design Group to propose a cooperative model linking rural development institutions and mental health promotion institutions. Additionally, a customized field commercialization project will be promoted, linking 10 mental health promotion institutions and eight healing agriculture facilities across four regions nationwide.
Kim Myung-soo, Director of the National Institute of Horticultural and Herbal Science at the Rural Development Administration, said, "This study is significant in scientifically proving that healing agriculture can be applied as a non-pharmacological treatment method to promote national mental health. We will do our best to establish and industrialize healing agriculture, along with research to clarify its effects, so that it can play a substantial role as an adjunct to medication treatment, foster new industries, and contribute to job creation."
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