Icheon-si Healing Agriculture Program Draws Attention

Promotion of Healing Farm-Institution Collaboration Project

Gyeonggi-do Icheon City is attracting attention by promoting healing agriculture for the treatment of various mental illnesses such as dementia and depression.

According to Icheon City on the 4th, the city is implementing the "Healing Agriculture Related Institutions Linkage Activation Project," which connects healing farms with institutions managing patients with dementia, depression, and disabilities.

An instructor at Beatles Nature School, a healing agriculture institution, is teaching citizens how to arrange wildflowers. Provided by Icheon City

This project links seven local institutions, including healing farms fostered by the Icheon Agricultural Technology Center, the Dementia Safety Center, the Mental Health Welfare Center, and the Korea Disabled Parents Association Icheon Branch, to conduct healing activities utilizing various rural resources. To this end, the center is fostering healing farms such as Chilseong Farm, Arirang Agricultural Museum, Healing Farm Seoro, Donkey Stars, Beatles Nature School, Masil, and Cheongchowon Riding Club.

Participants have reported meaningful results by enhancing self-efficacy through making jam and fruit syrup from agricultural products they harvested themselves in the healing farm gardens, and relieving depression and stress through interactions with animals such as horses, donkeys, and rabbits, the city explained.

Jung Hyun-sook, head of the Icheon City Agricultural Promotion Division, said, "We will continue to systematically select and foster rural healing farms to create new rural experience revenue models and contribute to citizens' happiness and health promotion."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.