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Minamitaka Airinkai Agriculture-Welfare Partnership

Isahaya, Nagasaki, Japan · Operator: 社会福祉法人 南高愛隣会

Overview

An agriculture-welfare initiative by the social-welfare corporation Minamitaka Airinkai, based in Isahaya, Nagasaki, linking with farming on the Shimabara Peninsula. People with disabilities help with planting, harvesting and shipping, gaining confidence and purpose while supporting agriculture facing labour shortages.

Citizen participation

People with disabilities take part in agriculture, the core industry of the Shimabara Peninsula. They plant and harvest lettuce and spinach at local farms, pack vegetables for shipping, and help with peak-season harvesting and transport of strawberries, mandarins, onions and potatoes, joining society through farming.

Operating model

An agriculture-welfare (noufuku) model in which the social-welfare corporation Minamitaka Airinkai provides farm work as welfare services such as Type-B continuous employment support and daily-living care. It partners with local farms, growers and food-delivery firms to handle work from production to shipping.

Impact

It creates work and purpose for people with disabilities while helping secure new labour for an ageing, understaffed local agriculture sector.

Land tenure

Matching program

Farmland and tasks secured through partnerships between the welfare corporation and local farms

Crops

  • lettuce
  • spinach
  • strawberries
  • mandarins
  • onions
  • potatoes

Scale

島原半島の地元農園や農家と連携し、就労継続支援・生活介護の事業所が農作業に従事

Sources(2)

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Minamitaka Airinkai Agriculture-Welfare Partnership — Urban Farm DB