Minding our Farmers

Alarming results of a UCD survey conducted in 2022 revealed that 23.4 per cent of surveyed farmers were considered at risk for suicide and over half of the surveyed farmers stated that they were experiencing moderate to extremely severe depression.

The Farming Minds

The research has prompted the development of a new programme, kicking off in the coming weeks, which focuses on training relevant groups in addressing farmer mental health issues. Dr Tomás Russell, Assistant Professor of Agricultural Extension and Innovation at UCD, explains: “The Farming Minds initiative is a collaboration between Agricultural Science and Psychology at University College Dublin ‘UCD Agri Mental Health Group’ interdisciplinary team and South-East Technical University and HSE-funded ‘On Feirm Ground’ farmer health training programme to promote farmer health. Recent research by the team at UCD showed that almost 40 per cent of Irish farmers were experiencing moderate to extremely severe anxiety and stress. Farmers identified (i) government policies designed to reduce climate change, (ii) outsiders not understanding farming, and (iii) concern over the future of the farm as the key stressors. The findings highlighted the importance of mental health initiatives and suicide awareness for the farming community and that farmers prefer experiential, group-based interventions delivered by experts in psychology who are also familiar with the nature of farming.”

Tailored Psychological Intervention

In an effort to address these challenges, UCD is looking to develop interventions to support farmers with skills that build resilience to help them cope with farm stress and uncertainty. “Experts in mental health need to be involved in the development and delivery of these interventions,” says Tomás. “Tailored culturally sensitive interventions to support farmers’ mental health are necessary. The current proposal aims to develop and test the feasibility and effectiveness of a scalable psychological intervention for farmers to target the key areas (i.e., mental health, stress, resilience) in terms of prevention and early intervention. In collaboration with and building on the existing framework of On Feirm Ground with farmer health, we aim to develop evidence-based interventions that go beyond signposting to support the development of key psychological skills.”

Training

As part of this unique collaboration, UCD is recruiting a team of post doctorate researchers and research assistants to develop and test these psychological interventions for farmers that are tailored for this group. Examining these psychological interventions represents the first half of the project, while the second half focuses on providing training for those working with farmers – from agricultural scientists to clinical psychologists – so that they can offer a specific set of supports if needed. “Farmers need to be dealt with as a specific group. Lots of organisations are contacting us for advice in relation to how to help farmers. We want to create an evidence-based programme for farmers in Ireland today, based on what is called ‘acceptance commitment therapy’. There is a similar programme in Australia framed around this therapy, which has had good results, and we are in contact with them on this as well.”

Referring to the importance of this work, Tomas states: “It is always important to say that farming is an excellent and rewarding career, which is enjoyable for many and has lots of advantages. But we have to acknowledge that some farmers are struggling for various reasons and the research has shown this. Farming comes with its own set of challenges, unique to agriculture. We want to make sure that there are supports there for our farmers. To date, there hasn’t been a tailored support service for farmers.”

Meanwhile, a replication of the 2022 farmer survey is being launched to review the current position and see if anything has changed since the last one.