The Dutch have led the way on practical, human-centred ways to deal with people diagnosed with dementia – first with the groundbreaking Hogeweyk Dementia Village, which has inspired a range of similar villages elsewhere, and now with the ‘care farm’ known as  Boerderij Op Aarde — “Farm On Earth”.

“Four days a week, Kees Oranje’s 81-year-old mother Paula gets up and goes off to work on a farm in the neighboring village of Brielle, just west of Rotterdam,” begins the Reasons to be Cheerful story about the care farm, which raises pigs for meat and grows pumpkins, beans, kale and other vegetables. It has been self-sufficient in energy since 2016.