Photo: E Mens | Unsplash
Four days a week, Kees Oranje's 81-year-old mother Paula works on a farm in a neighboring village. She might feed chickens, assist with chores, or help prepare hot lunches. The farm raises pigs for meat, and grows pumpkins, beans, and kale in a large vegetable garden. But while Boerderij Op Aarde -- "Farm On Earth" -- might look like a typical Dutch working farm, Paula and fellow farm workers have dementia. Hundreds of Dutch "care farms" provide meaningful work in agricultural settings with a simple philosophy: "We don't focus on what's missing, but what is still left," says co-founder Arjan Monteny, "what is still possible to develop in everybody." Care farming grew in popularity in the Netherlands in the late 1990s as farms, squeezed by rising costs and dropping food prices, looked for ways to become more multifunctional just as a movement was emerging to reduce the use of institutions.
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