Rachel Martin: When a quarter of our farmers are at risk of suicide, that’s more than a crisis 

Irish farmers have traditionally been very proud of themselves as food producers, yet changes on the horizon threaten the very notion of what a "good farmer" is.

Irish farmers have traditionally been very proud of themselves as food producers, yet changes on horizon to ag policy threaten to challenge that.

It puts more than a shudder down your spine when UCD research concludes that almost a quarter of Irish farmers (23.4%) are at risk of taking their own life.

The research conducted by Alison Stapleton and Tomas Russell is based on 256 farmers’ responses which were scored according to the Depressive Symptom Inventory Suicidality Subscale — a clinical psychology tool to assess the frequency and intensity of suicidal impulses.