To analyze the available resources and service quality associated with agro-healing policies, a total of 30 agro-healing farm owners were asked to complete an online survey between May 29 and July 23, 2021 (a total of 56 days). In all, 200 agro-healing farm owners were asked to complete the online survey and were recruited through nationwide agricultural technology centers using cluster sampling. A total of 43 completed surveys were collected, and the data from 30 questionnaires were used for the final analysis; in all, 13 questionnaires were omitted. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Konkuk University (7001355-202104-HR-432).

A total of 24 questions were developed to investigate the status of resources in the agro-healing farm industry, while the IPA of agro-healing farm policy services to domestic agro-healing farm owners was performed. The questionnaire consisted of 14 questions related to the resource status of agro-healing farms, 5 questions on the design of the agro-healing service policies, and 5 demographic questions. Agro-healing farm resource questions were subdivided into characteristics, operation status, environmental resources, and activity type (Lee et al., 2018a; Jeong et al., 2017). The questions pertaining to the general characteristics of the farm covered the factors of ‘area,’ ‘facilities’ and ‘operation period.’ The operation status questions covered the factors of the ‘purpose of operation,’ ‘agro-healing program,’ ‘program duration per session,’ ‘time per session,’ ‘number of program operation sessions,’ ‘operating period’ and ‘primary participants.’ Questions on environmental resources and activity resources covered the factors of ‘environmental resources (plant resources, animal resources, non-agricultural activities, and natural scenery)’ and ‘activity resources by type (farming therapy, horticultural therapy, forest healing, and animal-assisted therapy).’ The policy service design section consisted of five categories: ‘improving accessibility,’ ‘improving the method of information promotion and provision,’ ‘diversification of facility and program,’ ‘financial support’ and ‘expansion of experts and specialized institutions’ (Bae et al., 2019). As a result of calculating the Cronbach's α coefficient of the measurement variables used, all items except ‘improving accessibility’ showed a high confidence level of 0.80 or higher.

In this study, descriptive statistics were calculated and reported for the questionnaire data using Microsoft Excel (Office 2007; Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, USA) to examine the resource status of agro-healing farms, as well as to summarize the demographic information. In addition, a reliability test was conducted for the IPA questions related to the design of agro-healing service policies using SPSS (Ver. 28 for Windows; IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA), a statistical software package.

IPA was conducted for the design of the agro-healing service policies. IPA is a technique developed in the field of marketing to simultaneously analyze how importance and performance are perceived with respect to certain important attributes of a provided service or project (Martilla and James, 1977). The analysis result measures the importance and performance of the evaluated element, displays it on a two-dimensional drawing, and examines it according to its location (Fig. 1). IPA is displayed as quadrants, which are divided by the center point as ‘Keep up the Good Work,’ ‘Possible Overkill,’ ‘Low Priority’ and ‘Concentrate Here,’ respectively. ‘Keep up the Good Work’ means that the element is of high importance, that performance is relatively good, and that it is desirable to keep it. ‘Possible Overkill’ means that it is okay to reduce or cease performance when insignificant elements are overperforming. ‘Low Priority’ indicates that both importance and performance are low. 'Concentrate Here' is high in importance but low in performance, meaning that it is a point of focus for future improvement. IPA is useful for identifying areas that need improvement based on policy awareness (Slack, 1994). In this study, the four quadrants were divided and displayed on three points, reflecting the median value of a 5-point Likert scale (1–5) (Bae et al., 2019).

In terms of gender, 53.3% of the respondents were female and 46.7% were male (Table 1). Further, with respect to age, 56.7% were in their 50s, 20.0% were in their 40s, 13.3% were in their 60s, 6.7% were in their 30s, and 3.3% were younger than 30. The residential districts represented in this study included Gyeonggi-do (26.7%), Chungcheongnam-do (including Sejong; 23.3%), Gangwon-do and Jeollabuk-do (10.0%), Seoul and Jeju (6.7%), and Busan, Daegu, Daejeon, and Chungcheongbuk-do (3.3%). As for educational backgrounds, respondents were most likely to be university graduates, who represented 76.7% of all respondents. Further, 10 respondents (33.3%) majored in agriculture (e.g., horticulture, animal husbandry, and forestry) and humanities, and 2 respondents (6.7%) majored in engineering and technology.

The operating area of the largest group of agro-healing farms was Gyeonggi-do (30.0%), followed by Sejong (16.7%), Gangwon-do and Jeollabuk-do (10.0%), Chungcheongbuk-do and Chungcheongnam-do and Jeju-do (6.7%), Seoul and Busan and Daegu and Daejeon (3.3%) (Table 2). In terms of the scale of the agro-healing farms, 50.0% were over 9,900 m²; 16.7% were under 1,650 m²; 10.0% were 8,300 m² to 9,900 m²; 6.7% each were in the ranges of 1,650 m² to 3,300 m², 3,300 m² to 5,000 m², and 6,600 m² to 8,300 m²; and 3.3% were 5,000 m² to 6,600 m². In terms of facility type, the agro-healing farms were crop-harvesting facilities (90.0%), educational facilities (73.3%), harvest sales facilities (43.3%), forests (26.7%), kitchen and cooking facilities (23.3%), and lodging facilities (13.3%). The operating periods for these farms were as follows: more than 11 years (33.3%), 3 to 5 years (30.0%), 6 to 10 years (23.3%), and less than 1 year and 1 to 2 years (6.7% each).

In the UK, a survey of 115 agro-healing farms in operation since 2012 was conducted, and it was determined that the farm area ranged from 4,000–6,480,000 m² (Bragg, 2013), which is a relatively wide range and indicates a larger scale when compared to the agro-healing farms of Korea. This was believed to be because most of the agro-healing farms in Europe are operated as grassland-based dairy farms, unlike domestic agro-healing farms, which are mainly operated as crop-cultivation facilities or educational facilities (Hassink et al., 2020).

In descending order, the most common facility operation purposes included the following: experience (90.0%), healing (86.7%), education (80.0%), agriculture/production (60.0%), processing/sales (46.7%), and rehabilitation (16.7%; Table 3). In terms of the most commonly reported agro-healing programs, cultivating crops (horticultural therapy) were frequently reported (83.3%), followed by harvesting crops (76.7%), cooking with the harvest (50.0%), indoor horticultural activity (36.7%), harvested crop processing (33.3%), forest healing and animal experience (26.7%), and livestock processing (3.3%). In terms of program duration, the respondents indicated that the agro-healing sessions tended to be held on one day (96.7%), and the time per session was mostly over 90 minutes, or between 60 to 90 minutes. The agro-healing farms were mostly operated during the spring and autumn: in April (90.0%), May (90.0%), June (86.7%), September (86.7%), October (90.0%), and November (73.3%). The most frequently reported participants in the agro-healing agriculture programs were members of the general public (100.0%). When the general public was excluded from the analysis, the primary participants also included those in the field of education (73.3%), those who were training for employment (20.0%), those who were undergoing rehabilitation and or treatment for physical diseases (10.0%), and those living with mental illness (16.7%).

As of 2018, the purpose of farm operations was investigated for 78 educational and experience farms in Korea. The owners of the agro-healing farms accounted for only 47.4% of the total respondents (Lee et al., 2018b). It was postulated that the provision of services for agro-healing purposes has increased based on changes in farm owners' perceptions of agro-healing through the operation of related supporting projects and the establishment of infrastructure following the enactment of the agro-healing act (Jang et al., 2021).

In the Netherlands, agro-healing is focused on the education and treatment of mentally ill people, including learning disabilities and autism spectrum disorders, by implementing a system payable through medical fees under the Exceptional Medical Expenses Act (AWBZ) and the Persoonsgebonden Budget (PGB) (Hassink et al., 2014, 2020, CF UK, 2016). On the other hand, in the case of domestic agro-healing farms, the main users were the general public, showing a difference in terms of service consumers from Europe. Accordingly, when examining the number of agro-healing program sessions, most domestic agro-healing farms operated short-term programs of less than 4 sessions; however, in Europe, countries such as the Netherlands and the United Kingdom reported operating longer term programs of 8 months’ duration or longer (CF UK, 2016; Hassink et al., 2020). It is hypothesized that there are differences in the goals of service provision and the types of services provided, as based on the difference in the level and nature of domestic and foreign agro-healing farm policy support.

The environmental resource questions related to the agro-healing farms explored different resources, including plant resources, animal resources, non-agricultural activity, and natural scenery (Table 4). The classification of environmental resources by type was based on the criteria presented by the RDA (2020). Of the environmental resources, plant resources included vegetables (76.7%), fruit (70.0%), food crops (66.7%), herbs (43.3%), flowers (36.7%), and medicinal crops (36.7%). Among the environmental resources, animal resources included dogs (46.7%), rabbits (33.3%), birds (30.0%), cats (26.7%), fish (23.3%), insects (20.0%), goats (10.0%), sheep (6.7%), reptiles (6.7%), and horses (3.3%). Among the environmental resources, non-agricultural activities included the processing and selling of agricultural products (66.7%), cooking with the harvest (53.3%), rural cultural resources (53.3%), farm-based wellness food (46.7%), crafts (23.3%), and tea ceremonies (16.7%). Among the environmental resources, natural scenery resources were classified as medium scenery (60.0%), small scenery (56.7%), temporary scenery (56.7%), and large scenery (53.3%).

The various activities conducted by the agro-healing farms included the following: agricultural healing work, horticultural therapy, forest healing, and animal-assisted therapy (Table 5). Of the activity types, agricultural healing work included the making of processed food (66.7%), the management of mechanical equipment and tools (50.0%), other creative activities (46.7%), firewood management (33.3%), cleaning around the farm (30.0%), creating an animal breeding environment (26.7%), and carpentry (23.3%). Further, the horticultural therapy activities included the management of crop harvesting (83.3%), plant cultivation (76.7%), the creation and management of vegetable gardens (66.7%), farm parties (63.3%), vegetable garden design (60.0%), and making crafts using plants (56.7%). Forest healing activities included walking in the forest (60.0%), meditation in the forest (50.0%), playing in the forest (43.3%), yoga in the forest (26.7%), and crafts in the forest (20.0%). Finally, animal-assisted therapy activities included activities with dogs (43.3%), activities with rabbits (30.0%), activities to experience insects (23.3%), fishing (20.0%), and activities with sheep/goats (3.3%).

As of 2016, and as a result of a farm-type survey of 614 agro-healing farms in the Netherlands, more than 70% were found to be primarily operated by dairy farmers (Hassink et al., 2020). This is different from the case in Korea, where agro-healing farms feature different types of resources, such as animal and plant resources, non-agricultural activity resources, and forest resources. In order to develop an agro-healing program, it is a priority for the farmer or expert to identify the resources possessed by the farm (RDA, 2017). In particular, many types of agro-healing farms have been converted from production farms or education/experience farms to agro-healing farms in Korea (Lee et al., 2018b).

The results of the IPA indicated that respondents regarded the importance and performance of agro-healing service policies as above average, and they also recognized the relative importance of improving accessibility, facility and program diversification, and financial support. The importance and performance of the overall agro-healing revitalization policy sector that was surveyed were above average; all respondents indicated that they require support at the ‘Keep Up the Good Work’ level (Fig. 2). However, through comparing and analyzing the importance and performance levels of tasks for each sector and sub-division, overall performance was found to be relatively low when compared to importance. This means that the service quality is not as good as expected, and it is thus necessary to increase the performance level to improve it.

In Korea, users of agro-healing services primarily live in urban areas. However, due to the nature of agro-healing activities, agro-healing farms are typically located in rural areas, so users have difficulties accessing transportation to visit, and information on agro-healing services is also insufficient (Roesta et al., 2010). In the Netherlands, there is a local agro-healing farm operation in almost all regions; information-sharing activities or workshops are held (Lee, 2016), and various efforts are being made to increase the accessibility of the agro-healing services.

Further, in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Norway, agro-healing was included in the public service sector, and thus the system reduced the financial burden of agro-healing service costs for those receiving treatment by providing financial support (Hassink et al., 2014; Hassink and van Dijk, 2006; O’Connor et al., 2010; Parsons et al., 2010). This is regarded as the most important policy area that can increase access to agro-healing services, not only among members of the general public, but also for the socially disadvantaged who need treatment and rehabilitation.

In Europe, the professional workforce and institutions needed to run agro-healing farms have expanded. Europe has a well-developed agro-healing model; agro-healing farms are officially linked with various institutions such as schools, community service organizations, and hospitals, as these farms can provide new treatment resources to the local community, improve the emotional stability of consumers, and enable the economic maintenance of farms (Iacova and O'Connor, 2009; Goris and Dessein, 2007; Goris and Weckhuysen, 2007; Hine et al., 2008). The United Kingdom has established a regional linkage system for agro-healing, linking those who wish to be healed through close cooperation with organizations; they operate an agro-healing farm through the investment of a joint fund (CF UK, 2016). Government ministries have co-established a network to manage the quality of agro-healing farms (Hassink and van Dijk, 2006). Also, in Norway, a Green Care Council was established under government ministries to provide advice on agro-healing and to support various initiatives, such as quality control (Parsons et al., 2010).

Therefore, in order to improve the service quality performance and policies of domestic agro-healing farm operators, there is a need for policies that improve the efficiency of agro-healing farming. This can be achieved through the establishment of infrastructure between the agro-healing farm operator and related organizations and public institutions. In addition, it is thought that comprehensive support, such as the development and dissemination of agro-healing services, the enhancement of regional accessibility, and increases in the type of publicity and information offered through the establishment of a support agency, should be provided.