1st Hortus Medicus farmers’ focus group meeting

The 1st  focus group meeting in Hungary was held in Jászfényszaru on January 31st 2023. The diverse focus group involved 17 members (researchers, organic farmers, consultants, teachers and members of the Hortus Medicus consortium).  At this event potential and practising organic farmers were gathered mainly from Hungary but partly from abroad. The method applied during the focus group meeting was guided open podium discussion.

This focus group meeting was aimed at discussion on:

  • already existing (two of them presented at the beginning of the meeting) farms with therapeutic activities,
  • assuming the existing knowledge about therapeutic horticulture within this sample of stakeholders,
  • gathering suggested skills and attitude necessary for a farmer willing to participate in therapeutic horticulture activities,
  • assuming the scale of openness in the Hungarian farmers’ community towards therapeutic horticulture activities.

The participants of the focus group meeting formulated constructive and applicable recommendations related to the need of developing this yet neglected territory of farming and also stated useful points of view about the situation of therapeutic horticulture in Hungary and in some foreign countries where they gathered experiences from this field.