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The government has included ¥110 million for the program in a draft budget for fiscal 2016, and support is to be provided to about 15 projects. Interested workshops are to be recruited to the plan via prefectural governments.

Many workshops for disabled people are said to be interested in farming but have held back due to lack of knowledge. Some have approached the government for help.

According to a 2014 survey by the Japan SELP Center, a nonprofit organization, 33.5 percent of workshops for disabled people are engaged in farming and 12.7 percent said they “want to do so in the future.”

With the nation’s farmers aging rapidly, the program could provide the agriculture industry with much-needed workers and bring cultivation back to abandoned farmland.

A welfare ministry official said it would “allow disabled people to participate in agriculture in a way that suits them and could provide opportunities for interaction with the community.”