Government policies designed to reduce climate change have been identified as the top stress factor among farmers, a survey conducted by researchers at University College Dublin (UCD) has found.
Farm stress was associated with higher suicidality and distress, with over one fifth (23.4%) of surveyed farmers considered to be at risk of suicide, and 55.5% experiencing moderate to extremely severe depression.
The UCD project aims to identify risk factors for suicide and poor mental health among farmers, and is funded by the Health Service Executive (HSE) National Office for Suicide Prevention.
A total of 44.1% and 37.9% of the 256 survey respondents, including 185 males and 71 females from all around the island of Ireland between the age of 21 and 70 years, reported experiencing moderate to extremely severe anxiety and stress respectively.
Farmers who took the survey were asked to rate the stressfulness of 30 items. The following ten items were rated most stressful on average:
- Government policies designed to reduce climate change;
- Outsiders not understanding the nature of farming;
- Concern over the future of the farm;
- Not enough time to spend together as a family in recreation;
- Limited social interaction opportunities;
- Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments (including Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS), area-based payments, Green Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme (GLAS), etc.);
- Having too much work for one person;
- Seasonal variations in the workload (planting season, harvest, calving time, marketing time, etc.);
- Balancing the many roles performed as a family member and a farmer;
- Taxes (high taxes, figuring taxes, etc.).
The survey also found that psychological skills and coping were associated with higher well-being and lower suicidality and distress, including depression, anxiety and stress.
Most respondents’ main farm enterprise was dairy (133), followed by beef (63); mixed (26); sheep (21); tillage (4); and other (9), who worked approximately eight hours per day on the farm.
Around 55% of respondents were farm holders. Of non-farm holders most were children of farm holders, according to UCD.
Mental health survey
The project, which has been ongoing since August 2021, is coordinated by Dr. Tomás Russell, a lecturer in agricultural extension at the UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science, and Alison Stapleton from the UCD School of Psychology.
“These findings imply that improving farmers’ psychological skills may increase well-being and decrease suicidality and distress.
“We hope to use what we’ve learned over the past year to actually build effective mental health interventions for farmers and the farming community at large. Equally, it’s important to continue to lobby for changes in systems that are negatively impacting farmers.
“There is just so much work to be done in this area, and if our project can move things forward and get Ireland closer to putting workable supports in place, that would be great,” according to the project coordinators.