NEW HELP FOR FARMERS AT RISK OF POOR MENTAL HEALTH
A view from the farm
I love Christmas. I always have, and despite the fact that newspaper columnists and social commentators are guaranteed to get annoyed at the first sight of a Christmas card on sale in September, the season can’t start early enough for me.
When the big day finally arrives, I like nothing more than to sneak out of the house early to the sound of my wellies crunching on the frost-covered path. For me, the most magical day of the year hasn’t started until I’ve checked on the animals in the fields and sheds, and popped over to the hen house to collect freshly laid eggs for Christmas Day breakfast.
But I’m more than aware that the festive spirit isn’t shared by everybody and, for some people, there’s a hollow ring to the ‘season of joy and goodwill’. Christmas can be lonely, stressful, financially demanding or full of painful memories – and the darker side to December is a particular problem among farmers. It has been shown that farmers have higher levels of mental ill-health than anyone else. I was particularly shocked by a recent Farm Safety Foundation study that revealed that a staggering 92% of UK farmers under the age of 40 rank poor mental health as the biggest hidden problem facing them today. It’s generally accepted that the suicide rate in farming families is twice the national average.
The issue of poor mental wellbeing in the countryside isn’t new – far from it. A fellow Cotswold farmer recognised the problems more than 30 years ago when he set up the first rural helpline of its kind in the country. In 1991, the late Malcolm Whitaker had been approached by a farmer who was in financial trouble, desperate for help. The encounter led to the creation of Gloucestershire Farming Friends, a volunteer organisation still going strong today.
One of the things Malcolm identified was that farmers were “private and proud”. In response, he recruited a small team of other farmers so that callers could be reassured th
