Potential People of Disability in Agriculture, as Social Farming in Japan, Compared with Other Countries
2023 Volume 11 Pages 181-202
Details
2023 Volume 11 Pages 181-202
Employment of people with disabilities in the agricultural sector has an important role to play in solving labor shortages in the agricultural sector and in promoting employment of people with disabilities in the welfare sector. This review summarizes the development process and overall information on agricultural and welfare initiatives in Japan, and examines future possibilities and challenges by comparing them with social agricultural initiatives overseas. In the United States, agricultural support for people with disabilities is provided in collaboration with state governments and state universities such as AgrAbility. In the Netherlands, care farms are focusing on psychotherapy and exercise training for the disabled and elderly. In Italy, there are many examples of social agriculture initiatives in which socially vulnerable people participate in agricultural activities to improve their health and well-being. In Japan, the participation of people with disabilities in agriculture is attracting attention as a means of providing employment opportunities for people with disabilities and as bearers of agriculture. There are various forms of cooperation between agriculture and welfare, including “direct employment”, “welfare completion”, “inter-group cooperation”, and “intra-group cooperation”. When people with disabilities participate in agricultural activities through any of these types of partnerships, there are issues such as problems that arise when welfare facilities enter the agriculture, understanding of people with disabilities by those involved in agriculture, burdens on the agricultural side to create a working environment for people with disabilities, and lack of support systems such as government for agricultural-food welfare partnerships. Another issue is the expansion of partnership between agriculture and welfare. In order to expand the partnership, there is a lack of human resources and networks that are well versed in both agriculture and welfare.
In Japan, the agricultural land area accounts for about 13% of the national land area. In addition, the gross agricultural output in 2020 was 4658.5 billion yen, and the share of agriculture in GDP was 0.86% [1]. Because of this low position of agriculture in Japan’s domestic economy, the agricultural sector has been declining significantly in recent years, leading to a shortage of labor and an increase in the area of abandoned farmland. Under these circumstances, new roles of agriculture as social farming are attracting attention, such as maintaining local communities, working with the socially vulnerable, protecting nature and scenery, and spreading education on food.
Social farming is an innovative approach located within two concepts: multifunctional agriculture and community-based social/health care. Social farming includes agriculture enterprises and market gardens which integrate people with physical, mental, or emotional disabilities; farms which offer openings for the socially disadvantaged, for young offenders or those with learning difficulties, people with drug dependencies, the long term unemployed and active senior citizens; school and kindergarten farms and many more, Prevention of illness, inclusion and a better quality of life are features of social agriculture [2].
In this context, cooperation between agriculture and welfare is expected to solve labor shortages and secure employment opportunities for people with disabilities, especially in the agricultural sector in Japan. As part of government policy, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) are actively supporting efforts related to agricultural employment for people with disabilities. Specifically, MHLW provides support for the establishment of support systems at local government level [3], and MAFF provides assistance for the development of farms for the employment and the actual employment of people with disabilities in the farms and subsidizes human resource development programs to help people with disabilities settle into the agricultural sectors [3, 4].
Meanwhile, the number of articles in newspapers and journals on the participation of disabled persons in agriculture has gradually been increasing [5, 6]. The authors found 371 references for the period from 2010 to July 2022, when searching for the term “agricultural and welfare cooperation (Japanese words: Noufuku Renkei)” in Japanese using CiNii (Citation Information by National Institute of Informatics, Japan), a bibliographic information search, and 202 references when searching for “agriculture & people with disabilities”. An overview of the trends in previous studies shows the following for agricultural activities: 1) research on the employment of people with disabilities in agricultural production [7, 8]; 2) research on the employment of people with disabilities in fruit tree and flower activities [9,10]; 3) research on the employment of people with disabilities in the livestock industry [11, 12]. When the literature was categorized by business entity: 1) research on the employment of people with disabilities in agricultural production corporations [13, 14, 15]; 2) research on the participation of welfare offices in agriculture [16, 17, 18]; 3) research on the role of intermediate support organizations [3, 19, 20], etc. in various fields.
In Japan, “Noufuku Renkei” is linked to the 10-plus targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and can contribute to achieving the SDGs targets. It was introduced to be connected to more than 10 goals of the SDGs and to be an initiative that can contribute to achieving the goals of the SDGs [21]. Here, “Noufuku” is a compound word of “Nou” meaning agriculture, and “Fuku” meaning welfare in the Japanese language. “Renkei” means collaboration or partnership. We expect the partnership between agriculture and human welfare in Japan to be known worldwide, because this movement is one of the most advanced cases of social farming in Asia. Presently, the partnership between agriculture and human welfare is being incorporated into various fields in Japan, and a lot of reports and booklets are being published in the Japanese language. However, there is little literature in English on social farming as the partnership between agriculture and human welfare in Japan. This article reviews the relevant Japanese literature on the partnership between agriculture and human welfare in order to explain the development process of the partnership between agriculture and human welfare in Japan, and it aims to introduce it to researchers worldwide who are interested in the field of social farming in Japan.
Social farming, which involves agriculture in the provision of human welfare, is attracting international attention and various initiatives are being seen worldwide (Table 1) [2, 22]. The United States, where state governments and state universities are working together on a national project called AgrAbility; the Netherlands, where care farms focusing on rehabilitative effects are flourishing; and Italy, where social farms originated, were used as examples to compare Japan with these three countries, each with its own unique characteristic.
| Country | Start Year | Types of Social Farming | Target | Work Type | Number of Social Farming | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States of America | 1990 | AgrAbility | Variety of disabilities(Arthritis, Cerebral palsy, Head injury, etc.) | Livestock activities,Agricultural activities | 2020–2021: 1361 |
[23, 25, 26] |
| Netherlands | 1960–1970 | Care farming | intellectual disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, young people, older people (with dementia) |
Grassland type farm work | 2016: 614 |
[27, 28, 30] |
| Italy | 1970 | Social farming | mental disability, physical disability, people recovering from drug addiction or imprisonment, young people, elderly, abused women |
Agriculture, Industry, commerce, services | 2001–2003: 6159 |
[29, 32, 34] |
| Japan | 2010 | Noufuku Renkei | Persons with various disabilities | Agricultural production, processing | 2021: 4571 |
[35, 45] |
AgrAbility in the USA is a network supported by state universities and state governments for people with disabilities who work in agriculture [23, 24, 25]. The AgrAbility program was established as part of the 1990 Farm Bill [23]. This program provides education and support to live independently for farmers and ranchers with disabilities [26]. AgrAbility consists of the National AgrAbility Project (NAP) and State/Regional AgrAbility Projects (SRAPs). Both the NAP and all the SRAPs must be partnerships between a land-grant university and at least one nonprofit disability organization. Agricultural expertise is provided through the university, and the nonprofit organization provides disability expertise. Over the 30 years of AgrAbility, more than 40 universities have been involved. Initially, AgrAbility services targeted people with physical disabilities, but as the need has become more apparent, efforts are being made to expand mental/behavioral health-related services, including referrals to appropriate sources of treatment [23]. Serving a total of 1,361 farmer/rancher clients with disabilities from April 1, 2020, through to March 31, 2021, the clients served were typically male (79.3%) with an average age of 56.1 years [25]. The three most common types of primary agricultural operations, in descending order, were livestock (primarily beef), dairy, and field/grain operations.
In the Netherlands, care farms are a thriving example of multifunctional agriculture facing challenges in the areas of agriculture and medicine [27]. The first care farming (use of farms for the provision of care or social support) initiatives were set up in the 1960s and 1970s, mainly by enthusiastic pioneers from the care sector [2, 28]. Until the 1990s, many care farms’ main targets were people with intellectual disabilities and people with psychiatric challenges. In the years 2006–2009, many care farms were opened for clients including youths and older people (with dementia), and mental therapy and motion training were the main focuses [28, 30]. Since the end of the 1990s, The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport have stimulated the development and professionalization of social farming. Therefore, firstly, according to the National Agricultural Census, the number of care farms increased, from 524 in 2005 to 614 in 2016 [28]. As well as the increase of care farms, the number of researchers and research papers has also increased every year. A Scopus (https://www.elsevier.com/en-in/solutions/scopus) search for the keyword: “Netherlands & social farming”. yielded 72 hits from 2000 to 2010, but the number increased from 2011 to 2022, with 89 hits (Searching date: November 30th, 2022). When searching for the keywords: “Netherlands & Care farm”, there were 38 hits from 2000 to 2010, but the number of hits increased from 2011 to 2022 with 73 hits. Most care farms were grassland-based farms, and most grassland-based farms were dairy farms. Therefore, care farming was most common among goat and sheep farms and least common amongst arable farms [2].
In Italy, social farms are mostly social cooperatives, and people with disabilities contribute to food production [29, 31]. In Italy, the first experiences of social farming, and/or more in general of “social cooperation”, can be situated at the beginning of the 70s [29]. The concept of social farming started to spread in the form of animal-assisted activities, animal-assisted education, and animal-assisted therapy in the early 2000s [32, 33]. A Scopus search for keywords: “Italy & Social farming”, yielded 35 hits from 2000 to 2010, and 208 hits from 2011 to 2022 (Searching date: November 30th, 2022). When searching for keywords: “Italy & care farm”, it yielded 14 hits from 2000 to 2010 and 47 hits from 2011 to 2022. So, the number of researchers and research papers is less than in the Netherlands, but is increasing every year. In Italy, social farming practices employ agricultural activities to promote health, and well-being for vulnerable people. Vulnerable people are mainly individuals with a mental or physical disability; people recovering from drug addiction or imprisonment; young people; elderly; abused women [34]. Social farming in Italy is mainly implemented by two types of actors: “co-operatives type A” and “co-operatives type B” [2, 31]. Co-operatives type A offer social services on behalf of the state, and can provide care and educational services (such as home care, management of day centers, residential shelters, or kindergartens). Co-operatives type B are co-operatives that engage in production as a means of including disadvantaged people in employed work. Co-operatives type B can operate in all sectors of business (agriculture, industry, commerce and services) with the purpose of integrating disadvantaged people into the workforce [2, 29]. During the years 2001–2003, the total number of social cooperatives was 6159 at the national level [29].
The policies of the Japanese government on the employment and work of people with disabilities have developed since the end of World War II. General employment of people with disabilities began with the establishment of the Act of Facilitate the Employment of Persons with Physical Disabilities in 1960 after WWII [36]. Under food shortages during the disruption after the war, the people sheltered in these workshops had to cultivate vegetables and feed livestock to produce their own food self-sufficiently. However, as Japan’s economy developed and industrial society progressed, work in welfare institutions shifted from subsistence farming to subcontracted factory work for cash income. Welfare-type labor for people with disabilities has been prescribed and developed by various welfare laws for disabled persons. In 1949, the “Law for the Welfare of Physically Disabled Persons” was enacted mainly for retired disabled soldiers, and in 1960, the “Act on Welfare of Mentally Retarded Persons” was enacted. In the 1980s “welfare factories” for people with intellectual disabilities were established and in the 1990s “welfare factories” for people with mental disabilities were established, based on the “Act on Mental Health and Welfare for People with Mental Disabilities” (Mental Health Act: amended). These enactments and amendments of the related laws changed the situation of disabled people, who had difficulty finding general employment and could now receive the guidance they needed to adjust to social life and training at welfare facilities [37].
The employment of people with disabilities in the agricultural sector has been the focus of attention since the “Basic Plan for Persons with Disabilities” prepared by the Cabinet Office from fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2012. The “5-year Plan for the Implementation of Priority Measures” formulated based on the “Basic Plan for Persons with Disabilities” promoted the “Shift from Welfare to Employment” for people with disabilities. In it, know-how and related information on employment for people with disabilities was released to farmers and agriculture workers, and trial employment of people with disabilities in the agricultural sectors was to be promoted [37, 38]. The “Basic Plan for Persons with Disabilities” from fiscal year 2013 to fiscal year 2017 provided the information to farmers, agriculture workers, and others, as well as to welfare workers. This plan also promoted the establishment and development of farms for training people with disabilities for job employment. In the process, the employment of people with disabilities in the agriculture sector became a matter of awareness, high interest, and high expectations [39]. The policy of the employment of people with disabilities in the agricultural sector began in earnest with the “New Agricultural Policy for the 21st Century 2008” policy announced by the MAFF [40, 41]. The “New Agricultural Policy for the 21st Century 2008” promotes a situation that is the “creation of the environment in which diverse human resources, including women, the elderly, and people with disabilities, can play an active role” in engaging in agriculture to secure the food supply.
The MAFF and the MHLW are providing both nontangible and tangible factors, to support the participation by people with disabilities in the agricultural sector. As for non-tangible support, MAFF published a “Guidance on employment of persons with disabilities in the agricultural sector” in 2008 [9], which introduced the characteristics and methods of agricultural work which people with disabilities engage in, in the farms (greenhouse and open fields). In 2009, the “Manual for Employment of Persons with Disabilities in the Agricultural Sector” was published [42]. This manual demonstrated the support items for the employment of people with disabilities in the agricultural sector which were available to farmers and agriculture production corporations and welfare services [43]. In addition, MAFF and MHLW published “Agricultural Work in the Welfare field: Information on Support Systems, etc.” in collaboration in 2013. This guide booklet shows the main support measures and necessary information that can be utilized by social welfare service corporations, NPOs, farmers, and others who engage in farming for welfare purposes. As a result, the number of welfare facilities has increased in farming. In addition to these booklets, MAFF supports the farms with subsidies to improve farm facilities including rest areas, farm equipment storage, parking lots, water supply and drainage facilities, sanitation facilities, safety equipment, etc., to enhance the employment of the people with disabilities [44].
Around 2010, the term “Noufuku Renkei”, meaning agriculture and welfare partnership/cooperation came into use, and the term “Noufuku Renkei” was authorized in 2015 [45, 46, 47]. In “the Basic Plan for Food, Agriculture, and Rural Areas” in 2015, the expansion of welfare farms was expected to support the independence and the rehabilitation for people with disabilities through agricultural work. In the same year, the MAFF stipulated the “Support Project for Demonstration of Urban Agricultural Functions (fiscal year 2015 to fiscal year 2016)” and the “Grant for Promotion of Agriculture, Rural Areas (Measures for Partnership between Agriculture and Human Welfare) (from fiscal year 2017)”. These subsidies supported the farms to develop for social welfare and to train the supporters and the disabled persons on farms.
The “Japan Revitalization Strategy (Japan is Back)” and “Japan 100 Million Total Success Plan” were implemented by the Japanese Cabinet in 2016 [48, 49]. These policies are driving the participation of people with disabilities in the agricultural sector and promoting the partnership between agriculture and welfare in earnest. Furthermore, the National Association for the Promotion of Partnership between Agriculture and Human Welfare established in 2017 accelerated this partnership nationwide. This national association is constituted by 40 prefectures, and they collaborate on the establishment and expansion of the partnership between agriculture and human welfare [19]. This national association is comprised of people from diverse fields such as government, agriculture workers, welfare personnel, researchers, and residents. In 2019, MAFF presented the “Vision for Promotion of Partnership between Agriculture and Human Welfare”, which presented the direction of agricultural and welfare cooperation [50]. In 2019, the Japanese Agriculture Standard “Foods produced with the participation of persons with disabilities” Noufuku JAS was established to promote the expansion of sales channels and sales of agricultural products produced through agriculture and welfare cooperation [51]. In the same year, the “Agriculture-welfare collaboration promotion vision” was presented by MAFF [20], and continuing on this vision, the “Support Consortium for Partnership between Agriculture and Human Welfare” was founded. These actions have widely strengthened the way disabled persons are involved in the agricultural sectors [47].
In recent years, the agriculture sector has faced a decline in agricultural producers and workers [49, 52, 53]. Core persons engaged in agriculture1) decreased from 2.6 million persons to 1.4 million persons (about a 46.2% decrease), during the 25 years after 1995 [54, 55]. The percentage of people aged 65 and over exceeded 60% in 2010 and continued to rise, reaching 69.6% in 2020. In addition, the average age of farmers increased from 59.6 to 67.8 years old between 1995 and 2020 [54, 55]. Under the backdrop of the decline in the number of agricultural workers, the amount of abandoned farmland is increasing. Farmland accounts for about 13% of the country’s total land area, more than half of which is paddy fields. During the 25 years from 1995 to 2020, the area of arable land decreased from 5.0 million ha to 4.4 million ha (Table 2) [56, 57].
| Year | 1995 | 2000 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GDP (Billion yen) |
7034.0 | 6879.1 | 4959.9 | 4708.9 | 4509.1 | 4658.5 | [1] |
| Core Persons Engaged in Agriculture (Million Persons) |
2.6 | 2.4 | 2.2 | 2.1 | 1.8 | 1.4 | [54, 55] |
| Average Age of Farmers | 59.6 | 62.2 | 64.2 | 66.1 | 67.0 | 67.8 | [54, 55] |
| Area of Arable Land (Million ha) |
5.0 | 4.8 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.4 | 4.4 | [56, 57] |
| Abandoned Farmland Area (Million ha) | 0.2 | 0.34 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.4 | － | [54, 55] |
The data of Abandoned Farmland Area in 2020 was not collected.
Until recently, some people with disabilities have been observed to participate in small-scale farming, for the purpose of producing their own food or selling small quantities [8, 58, 59]. In the 2000s, the usefulness of welfare power had been noticed in agriculture, and many cases were reported on where people with disabilities were engaged in agriculture while receiving training and a welfare organization provided the agricultural work [60]. In terms of the agricultural activities in which people with disabilities are engaged, there are various jobs, such as work in open field cultivation, greenhouse cultivation, livestock production, contract farming, and food processing and marketing of agricultural products. These jobs suggest that the agricultural sector can provide many kinds of occupation in which anyone can participate, and these areas may provide ample room for people with disabilities [61, 62]. In addition, because agricultural work often involves manual labor and simple tasks, it is possible to provide tasks that suit the characteristics of people with disabilities [63, 64, 65]. From the perspective of the benefit of agriculture on welfare, much work of agriculture is done in the open air of nature. Work in the outdoors may provide for people with disabilities not only employment opportunities, but also positive effects on human mental and physical skills such as therapy, healing, and health building called rehabilitation [53, 63, 66]. Agriculture is one of the most suitable kinds of work for people with disabilities because of its multifaceted and diverse functions, such as the possibility of work appropriate to the characteristics of the person with disabilities and its rehabilitation effects [49, 67].
4.2 Current Situation of People with Disabilities in JapanIn the Basic Act for Persons with Disabilities, “persons with disabilities” refers to people with a physical disability, an intellectual disability, or a mental disability, and who are in the position of facing substantial limitations in their continuous daily life or social life because of their disability or a social barrier [68, 69, 70]. The total number of people with disabilities is 9,647,000, which is 7.6% of the 126.22 million total population of Japan. There, 4,360,000 people have physical disabilities, 1,094,000 have intellectual disabilities, and 4,193,000 have mental disabilities [71].
Due to the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, the local and global economy stagnated, and small and medium-sized companies relocated their workplaces overseas. As a result, small workplaces which were subcontracted from the companies as vocational facilities decreased drastically [52]. At that time, instead of subcontracted workplaces, people with disabilities have begun to engage in agriculture as a new place to work [72, 73, 74]. The results of a survey of the employment of people with disabilities on university farms with a variety of agricultural work menus, including fields, institutional horticulture, and livestock production, showed that they were often active on university farms, especially in harvesting, conditioning, and field management work, and also in handling agricultural machinery such as tractors [59]. In addition, due to the decrease in the number of farmers in Japan, it has become easier to rent agricultural land, making it easier for disabled welfare corporations and related groups to enter agriculture. According to 2014 data, in the past four years, 33.5% of continuation employment support establishments were engaged in agriculture [75].
Among private companies, the number of people with disabilities employed in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries increased from 460.52) to 1061.52) between 2011 and 2021 [76, 77]. On the other hand, the percentage of companies achieving the statutory employment rate (235 companies) of primary industry (415 companies) employing people with disabilities was 56.6%, which was a higher achievement rate compared with the former. When the actual employment rate of disabled people and the percentage of companies that have achieved the statutory employment rates were compared among all industrial areas, the agriculture, forestry, and fishery area showed better values than the other business areas. These results indicate that the primary industrial areas have potentiality and a good working environment for the people with disabilities employed [38].
The number of the people with disabilities employed in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries at the Public Employment Security Office increased year by year, from 1,576 in 2010 to 3,097 in 2020, almost doubling in 10 years [78]. This data suggested that people with disabilities have an intense interest in employment in the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sectors. Through work in agriculture, people with disabilities can earn wages, as well as the advantages of being able to rehabilitate their minds and bodies, and feel positive about their purpose in life [7, 45]. Presently, agriculture is growing to be one of the most important employment options for the people with disabilities, due to the efforts of the public employment security offices through the Public Employment Security Office [79].
4.3 Employment and Work of People with Disabilities in the Agricultural SectorThere are two main types of employment patterns for people with disabilities in Japan: general employment and welfare-type labor (Fig.1) [80, 81, 82, 83, 84]. Based on the Act on Providing Comprehensive Support for the Daily Life and Life in Society of Persons with Disabilities, persons with disabilities may work while receiving welfare services and training at welfare service establishments. Among welfare service offices, Type B of support for continuous employment (abbreviated as Type B in Fig.1) is for persons with disabilities who have difficulty in general employment and who have difficulty working under employment contracts. Here, we provide employment opportunities and workplaces for people with disabilities and provide the knowledge and training necessary for the workplace of general employment or Type A of support for continuous employment (abbreviated as Type A in Fig.1). In addition, depending on the symptoms and physical condition of the person with disabilities, they can work at their own pace or with the support of specialized staff. Type A continuous employment support is for people with disabilities who have difficulty working in general but are able to work based on employment contracts. Here, training is provided to improve the abilities necessary for general employment.
Persons with disabilities who have been trained at welfare service establishments may work in companies in the same way as ordinary people in accordance with the Act to Facilitate the Employment of Persons with Disabilities if their work capacity increases. If it represents the step-by-step process of training for people with disabilities to go to employment, it will be like a Type B to Type A to general company. However, depending on the work ability of the person with a disability, the state of the disability, and the symptoms, the disabled person may flow freely among three types of offices of Type B, Type A and general company.
1) “General employment” means employment in which a general company such as a private company, or a national or local government section employs a person with a disability as a worker under the Act to Facilitate the Employment of Persons with Disabilities. Under the Act to Facilitate the Employment of Persons with Disabilities, private companies, the national government, local governments, etc., are obligated to meet the “statutory employment rate” in order to ensure the employment of people with disabilities [85, 86, 87]. The statutory employment rate for private companies was raised to 2.3% in 2021 from 2.2% in 2018. While the same was raised from 2.5% to 2.6% for national government and local public entities, and from 2.4% to 2.5% for boards of education in each prefecture [77]. The number of people with disabilities employed was increasing due to the increase in the statutory employment rate [86, 88, 89]. The aggregated results of the general employment of people with disabilities indicated that approximately 598,000 people with disabilities were employed in private companies, which was an increase of 19,500 from the previous year (up 3.4%). Of these, 359,000 were people with physical disabilities, 141,000 were people with intellectual disabilities, and 98,000 were people with mental disabilities. The increase in the number of people with disabilities employed in general employment increases their motivation to work more positively [90].
Figure 1: Employment pattern for people with disabilities in Japan Type A: Support for continuous employment Type A is the welfare employment offices for persons with disabilities who can work under employment contracts. Type B: Support for continuous employment Type B is the welfare employment offices for persons with disabilities who have difficulty working under employment contracts. Circle: employment pattern.
2) “Welfare-type labor” means employment under the welfare support system for people with disabilities. This type of employment is provided to people with disabilities whom general companies find difficult to employ. They can obtain work activities with payment as well as work training aiming at general employment [91]. There are two types of employment-related welfare services under the Act on Providing Comprehensive Support for the Daily Life and Life: Support for continuous employment Type A (employment-type) and Support for continuous employment Type B (non-employment-type) [92, 93, 94, 95, 96].
Support for continuous employment Type A facilities has an employment contract with the person with a disability. The Type A facility is intended for people with disabilities over 18 years old who have difficulty in obtaining general employment in companies but are capable of working with appropriate support [97]. Support for continuous employment Type A provides opportunities for people with disabilities to work and the training necessary to improve their knowledge and abilities required by general companies [98]. According to the summary of a survey of social welfare facilities from 2010 to 2020, the number of Support for continuous employment Type A facilities increased from 451 to 3,929, and the number of users in Support for continuous employment Type A facilities also increased from 8,321 to 89,351. The average monthly wage for people with disabilities increased from 75,317 Japanese yen to 79,625 Japanese yen. However, the average hourly wage at a Type A business office in the fiscal year 2020 was 887 yen [99, 100].
Type B Continuous Employment support business facilities do not have an employment contract with the person with a disability who uses the facility. They are intended for people who have work experience but have difficulty in finding general employment or Support for continuous employment Type A work. Support for continuous employment Type B facilities provides opportunities and places for people with disabilities to engage in employment and daily life activities, as well as the training necessary to improve their knowledge and abilities required for such employment [98]. According to the summary of a survey of social welfare facilities from 2010 to 2020, the number of Support for continuous employment Type B facilities increased from 3,564 to 13,355, and the number of users of them increased from 77,546 to 359,732. During the 10 years from 2010 to 2020, the average monthly wage for people with disabilities increased from 13,079 Japanese yen to 15,776 Japanese yen. The average hourly wage was 223 yen, making low wages an issue [101, 102].
4.4 Classification of the Partnership between Agriculture and WelfareAgricultural work includes various tasks and working places, and when people with disabilities join in agriculture, they can perform a lot of different types of work. Furthermore, there are many players such as farmers, agricultural production corporations, social welfare facilities, private companies, etc. in the management role of agriculture. People with disabilities also play roles in agriculture as employees or service users. The different working patterns in the partnership between human welfare and agriculture are classified as the following: Direct employment type, Welfare self-sufficient type, Inter-group cooperation type, and Intra-group cooperation type [50, 103, 104]. Intra-group cooperation type includes two forms of parent companies, one in the welfare sector and the other in the agriculture sector. In addition to them, Intermediate support organizations are nominated in a role to assist the partnership between the agriculture sector and welfare sector (Fig.2). Although national trends in the number of facilities of agricultural and welfare cooperation are unknown, the data of Gifu prefecture may demonstrate a representative case study in Japan, it provides a clue to the status of agricultural and welfare cooperation effort nationwide. Gifu prefecture is known as one of initiating prefectures of the “National Prefectural Network for Noufuku Renkei” (established in 2017), which is actively promoting the cooperation between agricultural and welfare. For this reason, The Gifu Agri-Challenge Support Center has been monitoring the status of cooperation between welfare service offices for persons with disabilities, farmers, and agricultural corporations in Gifu prefecture, as well as the entities involved in agricultural and welfare cooperation.
In Gifu prefecture, the number of facilities of agricultural and welfare cooperation was 181 in 2022. Of these, 29 were engaged in the Direct employment type (of which 3 overlap in the type of collaboration), 86 in the Welfare self-sufficient type (of which 19 overlap), 59 in the Inter-group cooperation type (no overlap), and 7 in the Intra-group cooperation type (of which 3 overlap). In the Intra-group cooperation type, two facilities were established by agricultural companies and five were by welfare organizations. The intermediate support organization in Gifu prefecture was one organization, the Gifu Prefecture Agri-Challenge Support Center. This data shows that 47.5% of the agricultural and welfare cooperation in Gifu prefecture are due to the participation of welfare sectors in agriculture. The next most common type of cooperation was the outsourcing and other means between welfare sectors and agricultural sectors.
Figure 2: Working patterns of people with disabilities in agriculture Yellow arrow: Direction from the original entity to new approaches and effort in agricultural and welfare cooperation. Orange arrow: Intermediary support organizations provide support for partnership between the agricultural sector and the welfare sector from the outside as a third party. Blue and green color: Welfare-related and agricultural-related objects, respectively. Two Intra-group cooperation types: There are two different entities (welfare facility and agriculture corporations). Contracting agreement between two facilities are explained at the section of Inter-group cooperation type in the text.
1) The direct employment type is a type in which self-employed farmers or agricultural corporations directly employ people with disabilities as full-time or part-time employees and engage in farming [45, 52, 104]. There, the emphasis is on the fact that the people with disabilities are highly motivated to work in agriculture. They can earn a wage that is commensurate with the amount of work they perform, making it easier for them to achieve independent living. Because self-employed farmers and agricultural production corporation’s own farmland and have accumulated agricultural knowledge and skills, the people with disabilities can receive agricultural skills directly. In addition, they feel that they are working in society in the same way as healthy people and can confirm their own roles, which leads to self-confidence. However, when farmers and agricultural corporations employ disabled people, it may be the case that farms have less support on welfare [105]. Therefore, the farmers must be prepared to consider the following points: (1) supporting staff and equipment for people with disabilities may be required, and (2) it may take about one year for people with disabilities to become able to perform tasks individually. These factors may be a heavy load on management for the farmers. An example of a successful effort by an agricultural production corporation to employ people with disabilities is Kyomaru-en Corporation, a hydroponic grower in Shizuoka prefecture [66], and they advocate “Universal Agriculture” to promote diversity in the workforce and agricultural development. “Universal Agriculture” refers to agriculture in which all people, including people with disabilities and the elderly, can engage [66]. There are many case studies in the literature on the efforts and possibilities of agricultural production corporations employing people with disabilities [66, 106, 107].
2) The welfare self-sufficient type is a type in which the welfare facility is independently responsible for agriculture [108, 109]. The welfare facility engages in agricultural production using its own farmland or leased farmland, and people with disabilities can engage in agricultural work on this land and earn wages or payments. Welfare facilities have a sufficient understanding of people with disabilities and are capable of providing work appropriate to the characteristics of people with disabilities, allowing them to discover their purpose in life through farm work. In addition, people with disabilities can be expected to be representatives for farming in rural areas, easily interacting with farmers and local people and contributing to the promotion of the local community and industry [110]. However, since welfare facilities are not originally farmers, securing farmland and the market necessary for their agricultural produce, their lack of agricultural techniques and skills, and initial investment costs are challenges [39].
3) Inter-group cooperation type is a type in which an agricultural corporation and a welfare facility conclude a contract agreement for agriculture work. There are two types of collaboration. One is the outsourcing of agricultural work from the agricultural sector to the welfare sector, and the people with disabilities belonging to the welfare facility go to the farmer’s farm, and work in agriculture. The other is also outsourcing, but the people with disabilities do not go out, they work in the welfare facility like subcontractors, doing tasks such as sowing on trays and adjusting the harvest, etc. [53]. The welfare facility can ensure year-round work by contracting agricultural work through outsourcing, even if they do not have agricultural land. On the other hand, farmers can request people with disabilities to support their work, depending on the amount of work in a busy farming season, thereby increasing the area of farmland and production. When support staff from a welfare facility accompany people with disabilities to agricultural work sites, they are responsible for providing guidance to the disabled persons, so the burden on farmers is reduced. In addition, since the support staffs are instructed directly by farmers on working methods and procedure, they are expected to instruct the disabled persons based on the farmer’s instructions. This order of steps makes the places for people with disabilities to work and improves labor costs. There are various tasks in agricultural work throughout the year, so it is important for farmers to classify the agricultural work required by the labor force, and for welfare facilities to classify the contents of agricultural work which is easy for people with disabilities to undertake. Therefore, it is necessary to match agriculture and welfare [53, 105].
4) In the intra-group cooperation type, there are two styles. One is where Agricultural corporations establish their own welfare facilities at the farm and conduct farming operations, while the other is where welfare facilities establish their own agricultural corporations and conduct farming operations [111]. In the former case, agricultural producers such as farmers invest in welfare, for example building new facilities for people with disabilities. The welfare facilities’ participation in agriculture expands the job occupation of people with disabilities and increases their income. This will also greatly contribute to the maintenance and development of local agriculture [14].
5) “Intermediary support organizations” are presently developing activities to support the partnership between the agricultural sector and the welfare sector from the outside as a third party [103]. On the welfare side, it is necessary for people with disabilities to acquire the skills and knowledge to do agricultural work [3]. In addition, welfare facilities need a partner to mediate information on farmland and agricultural materials [63]. On the other hand, on the agricultural side, people such as farmers and farm workers need to have knowledge about people with disabilities and welfare systems. Between the agriculture sector and welfare sector, the intermediary support organizations have a role of advising and supporting both sectors. At first, these intermediary organizations introduce the parties to each other, by matching together their needs [20]. Then the organization gives them advice on how to collaborate and support to establish the business operated by both sectors. Intermediary support organizations have the following roles: (1) consulting and supporting the agricultural sector and the welfare sector to collaborate with each other, (2) matching farmers who are looking for human resources with welfare facilities seeking work, and (3) developing human resources such as coordinators who mediate between the sectors [19, 63].
The partnership between agriculture and human welfare has the effect of solving problems in both the fields of agriculture and welfare and may have a great impact on realizing an inclusive society based on the rural community. For example, working on a farm with people with disabilities may provide an opportunity to build understanding and cooperative relationships with those who work with them and with people in the local community [6]. It may also create opportunities for interaction among diverse people in the local community [17]. When people from the welfare sector enter a local community through farming, it creates opportunities for greetings and daily conversations with farmers in the surrounding area and local people. As these interactions increase, people in the welfare sector can obtain advice on farming and participate in local traditional events through conversations with farmers and local people [64]. Furthermore, the active participation of people with disabilities in traditional festivals and community events such as weeding around the village and community cleanups may help revitalize communities suffering from labor shortages and aging populations [60, 61]. In addition, the involvement of welfare facilities in the production and processing of food products made from local agricultural products can lead to the addition of value to local agricultural products and the development of sales channels [61].
However, for the further development of this partnership between agriculture and human welfare, there are still some problems as unique to the spread of this partnership, in addition to the general problems of the employment of people with disabilities. For example, there are the following: 1) various problems that arise when welfare facilities enter the agricultural industry, 2) lack of understanding of people with disabilities by those involved in agriculture and the burden of creating a comfortable working environment for people with disabilities, 3) the undeveloped system of intermediary support, etc. There are also general welfare issues on the employment of people with disabilities.
1) When the welfare sector has an interest in being involved in agriculture, they do not have enough knowledge and understanding of agriculture, or the high investment costs of starting agriculture [87]. Agricultural activities consist of relatively more physical work processes than other industrial fields, allowing disabled persons to work in various workplaces and areas in which they excel. Some people with disabilities have difficulty in learning multiple procedures at once, making it difficult for them to work independently. However, since the staff of welfare facilities may have insufficient skills and knowledge of agriculture, it may be difficult to clearly instruct people with disabilities in their work sometimes. For this reason, it is necessary to have human resources with knowledge and skills of agriculture and welfare, so that agricultural work can be broken down and reassembled into a form that allows people with disabilities to engage in agricultural work. In a survey of university students in the agricultural sciences, female students were more attentive to people with disabilities than their male counterparts [112].
In addition, when welfare facilities are to engage in agriculture, it is also important to consider knowledge of the sale and distribution of agricultural products as well as of the food processing of agricultural products. Welfare facilities are required to build relationships with retailers and markets where agricultural products are sold, and to make pre-shipment adjustments of products such as weighing or counting, packaging, labeling, transportation systems, and sales contracts with shipping destinations. It is also necessary to select and produce agricultural products with high unit prices and marketability, and to improve the preservation and added value of agricultural products by processing food using surplus products. Furthermore, when welfare facilities newly participate in agriculture, they must prepare initial investments in farmland, develop cultivation facilities and purchase agricultural machinery [50, 113]. When welfare facilities try to acquire farmland, they do not know how to access the relevant organizations. It is also necessary to grasp the qualifications and education and training for the operation of agricultural machinery and facilities. In fact, “Gathering information on agricultural technology” was the highest issue at 70%, as an initial issue for welfare facilities [114]. The next highest challenge was, “Securing funds for new facilities and equipment” at 60%.
2) When people with disabilities enter agriculture, there may be some burdens on the agricultural side [13, 39]. It is important for agricultural facilities to provide stable work to people with disabilities throughout the year. But, in the case of field crops such as paddy rice, agricultural work has a strong relationship to the seasons, and it is often difficult to provide stable agricultural work throughout the year. For this reason, farmers sometimes request people with disabilities to help with agricultural work only during the busy season, in the form of outsourcing. However, farmers often expect a labor force of people with disabilities due to a shortage of manpower during the agricultural season, but due to the geographical relationship between welfare facilities and farms in terms of commuting, it is not always possible to establish a cooperative system.
On the other hand, in the case of protected horticulture and animal husbandry, it may be possible to provide agricultural work to people with disabilities throughout the year. However, even if agricultural facilities provide work all year round, people with disabilities have tasks that they are good at or are not good at. For this reason, it is necessary to consider the time until they learn the work and improve their skills [52]. Concerning that time, the “Agricultural Work Manual” may be useful. The “Agricultural Work Manual” was created to analyze agricultural work relative to the nature of people with disabilities [115]. The “Agricultural Work Manual” is a systematic compilation of agricultural work procedures and actual work conditions performed by people with disabilities, based on examples from agricultural corporations and employment support facilities for them [116]. This manual describes the subdivision of work, the difficulty of work, the work method, etc., and it is possible to make a prospect of work. And with reference to this, guidance can be provided to people with disabilities. However, since work ability differs depending on the individual with disabilities and physical conditions differ from day to day, it is not easy to create an agricultural work classification manual tailored to each person.
In addition, it is necessary to introduce appropriate agricultural equipment in consideration of the particular characteristics of people with disabilities, and to further improve toilets and the work safety environment [117, 118]. The introduction of such new facilities and equipment would be an economic burden on agriculture.
3) In developing the collaboration between agriculture and welfare, the support system for the collaboration is still insufficient. One of the reasons is that the lack of human resources such as coordinators who support the connection between the sectors of agriculture and welfare [4, 87]. The role of the coordinator is to mediate and coordinate between the sectors of agriculture and welfare, when concluding a contract for agricultural work [19]. On the other hand, at the work sites of farms, trainers who promote the collaboration between agriculture and welfare are important as human resources to adjust agricultural activities according to the appropriateness and ability of disabled persons. This role of trainer is often played by farmers themselves and vocational instructors at welfare service facilities [119]. Human resources who will become coordinators and trainers need to be familiar with both agriculture and welfare, and there is a need to develop such human resources.
In addition, the horizontal networks among entities such as agricultural sectors, welfare sectors, and intermediate support organization, engaged in agriculture-welfare collaboration is also insufficient, and they cannot share useful information on the collaboration. When a questionnaire survey for municipalities was conducted on the existence of a network of proactive businesses engaged in agriculture-welfare collaboration, only 10.4% of municipalities answered “Yes” [120]. According to a survey conducted on agricultural management entities, welfare facilities, agricultural cooperatives, special subsidiaries, and intermediate support organizations, 48.6% of respondents pointed out that “there is a shortage of human resources such as coordinators who are well-versed in both agriculture and welfare” as an early issue in efforts for agriculture and welfare collaboration, indicating a shortage of experts in this field [114].
In this review, we examined the relevant literature on the employment of persons with disabilities in the agricultural sector in Japan, including studies and case reports on the participation of persons with disabilities in agriculture. We also compared the status of efforts in Japan with those in the United States, the Netherlands, and Italy.
People with disabilities can improve their physical and mental conditions by participating in agricultural activities, also known as horticultural therapy or animal therapy. In addition to these benefits, the linkage between agriculture and welfare is expected to help develop the economy and local communities. The development of employment of people with disabilities in the agricultural sector has been characterized by a variety of countries, cultures, and policies. Since the 1960s, social farming, known as social farm or care farm, has started in European countries since the 1960s. In Japan, on the other hand, social farming, known as “Noufuku Renkei”, has been spreading across the country since the 2000s. Most of the reports in Japan to date have been case studies of employment of people with disabilities in the agricultural sector. The agricultural activities there were mainly production activities of growing and managing vegetables in greenhouses and fields. However, in order to promote the diversity of work performed by people with disabilities and the expansion of employment opportunities, active participation of people with disabilities in livestock farming and fruit tree production is also expected, as seen in the Netherlands and the United States. In many European social welfare agriculture and social farm initiatives, the target population of facilities is not limited to the disabled, but extends to drug addicts, people seeking rehabilitation from prison, women, and the elderly. In the United States, welfare facilities like AgrAbility are collaborating with universities and non-profit organizations to provide agricultural expertise to people with disabilities. In Japan, the aging of the population is an important issue, but there have been few efforts to specifically extend participation in agriculture to the elderly and other non-disabled people.
Agricultural workplaces for people with disabilities in Japan are categorized into general enterprises, continuous employment support Type A, and continuous employment support Type B. This is because the agricultural work methods in which people with disabilities work differ depending on the degree of disability, type of disability, and work ability of the person with disabilities. In Japan, the participation of people with disabilities in agriculture has been developed under the term “Noufuku Renkei”. In the agricultural-welfare partnership, there are several types of work styles in which people with disabilities work in agriculture, including “direct employment type”, “welfare self-sufficient type”, “inter-group cooperation type”, and “intra-group cooperation type”, as well as the existence of “intermediate support organization” to support these types of work. In any of these forms of participation by people with disabilities in agricultural activities, it is necessary to resolve issues such as the various problems that arise when welfare facilities enter the agricultural industry, the understanding of people in the agricultural industry toward people with disabilities, the burden on the agricultural industry to create a working environment for people with disabilities, and the lack of government and other support systems for cooperation between agriculture and welfare.
In Japan, when farmers directly employ people with disabilities or when welfare facilities employ people with disabilities who have entered the agriculture, the staffs or instructors at the facilities provide guidance to the people with disabilities in agricultural work. If the staffs or instructors are not specialists in agriculture or welfare, they may be burdened with providing guidance to the disabled. Therefore, in order to expand agricultural and welfare cooperation, it is necessary to develop intermediate support organizations that can match the needs of both the agricultural and welfare sides and expand their expertise.
This work was financially supported by JST SPRING, Grant Number JPMJSP2125. The first author would like to take this opportunity to thank the “Interdisciplinary Frontier Next-Generation Researcher Program of the Tokai Higher Education and Research System”.
1): Core persons engaged in agriculture is household members who were mainly engaged in agriculture.
2): For persons with severe physical disabilities and persons with severe intellectual disabilities other than short-time workers, one person shall be double-counted as equivalent to two persons under the law. For Part-time workers who are physically or intellectually disabled or mentally disabled other than severely disabled, one person is counted as equivalent to 0.5 person under the law.
