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Creating an Age-Friendly Environment in Farming – The Farmer’s Yards Approach

Shane Conway

Summary

With demographic trends highlighting an inversion of the farming community age pyramid, with those aged 65 years and over constituting the fastest growing subgroup of the farming population globally, a newly established social initiative for older farmers called Farmer’s Yards, embodying values, and aspirations pertinent to farmers in their later years, is helping to create an age-friendly environment in farming in line with World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines. By providing older farmers with a platform for sustained social engagement and inclusion within the farming community, this social initiative, developed by the University of Galway in Ireland, aligns with principles promoting active and healthy aging, thereby contributing positively to their mental health and wellbeing in later life. In doing so, Farmer’s Yards is helping to address recent calls by the European Commission for an increased emphasis on the delivery of creative mechanisms that enhance the quality of life of older farmers through social policy.

The pilot phase of this social initiative, held in a Livestock Mart (Auction Market) setting in the west of Ireland, demonstrates how Farmer’s Yards can strengthen Mart’s long-standing position and reputation as centres of social activity within rural areas by helping older farmers maintain legitimate social connectedness, collegiality, and comradeship with their peers in advancing age in their respective regions, and in turn, combat social isolation and loneliness in later life.

The cross-cultural applicability and relevance of Farmer’s Yards is highlighted by its recent implementation in the state of Pennsylvania in January 2025 by Pennsylvania Farm Link, who successfully obtained funding from the Northeast Risk Management Education (NERME) Center to adapt and expand the initiative to support older farmers in this U.S. state.

Details

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