It has long been understood that working outdoors has certain psychological and emotional benefits, especially when it involves tending nature. Gardening can prove helpful in alleviating depression, and there is evidence to suggest that the presence of foliage (植物叶子) directly lifts an individual’s mood.
There is a long history of putting mentally troubled people to work on farms. People who can’t seem to find coherence in their own lives, can’t relate to a conventional job, or have suffered some brutal emotional rupture, discover that the presence of plants and animals has a calming influence.
In the early 2000s, Beren Aldridge was looking to establish a farm of this sort in Cumbria, in Britain’s Lake District. In 2004, Growing Well was established, a ten-acre farm producing vegetables that are sold locally. Evaluations have shown that those who spend time working at the farm experience clear improvements in their conditions, which tend to be more sustainable than the improvements offered by medicalized forms of treatment.
How should we make sense of the success of something like Growing Well? If one chooses to view the human mind or brain as some magically autonomous entity, with its own strange habits, tastes, fluctuations and dysfunctions (失调，功能紊乱), which we as human beings have to look after (with the assistance of managers, doctors and policy-makers), then the story is relatively obvious. People are occasionally victims of a spontaneous mental or neurological affliction which they are powerless to fix. The natural environment and physical activity offer a psychosomatic (身心的) treatment for these sorts of ailment, not unlike a drug or a talking cure.
No doubt this is the sort of story that many of Growing Well’s funders and National Health Service collaborators would tell. Spending time with plants becomes a medical fix. But this is very different from how Beren Aldridge understands the project he founded. As far as he is concerned, Growing Well is a business, not some form of medical prescription in disguise. Prior to establishing the farm, Aldridge had done a master’s degree in vocational rehabilitation (康复), studying how work helps people recover from illnesses and painful life events. His dissertation looked at participatory management practices, exploring the benefits of democratic business structures, otherwise known as co-operatives. It struck him that including people in the running of businesses—be they social enterprises or not—was an obvious way of helping them rediscover a sense of purpose and agency in their own lives. Why not bring together the movement for “care farming”, which had traditionally been viewed as a service to mental health patients, with that of cooperatives, which offered a template for empowering people to organize and produce collectively?
Virtually all the scientific analysis of the psychological effects of spending time with plants completely ignores why a person might do so. Gardening and harvesting become merely therapeutic (治疗的). The relationship between foliage and mood is represented as a simple one of cause and effect. The ethos of Growing Well is entirely different from this. Its organizing principle is that volunteers share the same purpose, of producing and selling good vegetables. The farm is established as an “industrial and provident society”, one of the legal forms available for the creation of co-operatives in the UK. Anyone who has an interest in Growing Well, be it as a customer, a volunteer or a visitor wanting to know more about farming, is encouraged to become a member, who is then able to participate in decision-making. Volunteers are offered the opportunity to engage in management of the business, at whatever level of seniority they would like. This isn’t just about “working with your hands”; it is also about expressing a view and taking some control.
Answer the following questions according to the above text.
1. Why do policy makers, funders and doctors welcome Grow Well farm? (10%)
2. How does Beren Aldridge’s intention differ from that of the policy makers, funders and doctors? (15%)
