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Social farming (SF) has been developing dynamically in the Czech Republic in the last 10 years and enterprises are emerging and operating where the necessary conditions and environment are created for various people from target groups. The practice in the Czech Republic is to a large extent based on international practice and follows the basic outlines of the practice of mainly European countries. In these facilities, these persons often find employment or engage in various occupational therapy programmes in the provision of social services. Thus, in this analysis, we qualitatively focus on the identification of the basic factors why these farms come into existence and what are the main determining aspects for their functioning, which are based on the long-term experience of running a farm under the social farming concept. A guided qualitative interview method was chosen with respondents who have been operating in the country for a long time in the framework of the analysis, thus bringing in stimulating experiences that accompany them in their activities. The analysis is thus essentially a first experience in this field and raises a number of further questions that could be further deepened and refined, including in an international context.

In the agricultural sector, where factors like the type of agriculture, management techniques, and access to funding are critical, disadvantaged people face significant barriers to employment. This study investigated the effects of these factors, especially with regard to sustainability and social farming, on the employment of disadvantaged persons in the Czech Republic. We sent questionnaires to 2036 agricultural businesses within the Czech Republic, and the data we received were sorted and analyzed. There was a favorable relationship between farm size and employment chances. Disadvantaged people were more likely to be hired by large farms, especially those larger than 250 hectares. Furthermore, mixed-production farms were more capable of employing disadvantaged persons, unlike conventional farms, which reached their maximum employment levels at one, three, or six workers. Organic farming had a more even distribution, while biodynamic farming showed limited capacity to employ disadvantaged persons. Farms involved in fundraising had fewer farms but employed more disadvantaged persons (number of employees peaked at two, four, and six), while farms that did not engage in fundraising hired more disadvantaged individuals (peaked at one and three employees). The motivations for employing disadvantaged persons were primarily social concerns, as well as labor shortages and economic and innovative factors. These findings show the importance of agricultural enterprises using these factors to improve the social and economic well-being of disadvantaged persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article pursues an innovative dimension of social entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector that keeps rural areas viable, so-called social farming. Social entrepreneurship appears as an essential driver in the European economy and it heads toward new opportunities mainly through its impact on social integration, economic sustainability, and fair society. Social farming and social farms can successfully respond to the challenge of social exclusion and lack of social services provision and other opportunities in rural areas through alternative therapeutic activities, sheltered working places or integrative educational activities in a farm environment. From this perspective, a social farm should correspond to the definition of a social enterprise. By introducing the basic frames of social entrepreneurship and social farming in general and in the Czech Republic, and by concentrating on fifteen Czech social farms, this paper presents an insight into this retro-innovative practice of social integration systems in the countryside. It mainly answers the question, whether social farming complies fully with social entrepreneurship stream, and it explores the role of the social farm in rural development by using semi-structured and in-depth interviews.