Sowing mental wellbeing in farming
A 2024 study found 22.8% of farmers were at risk of suicide.
With mental health for farmers everywhere slowly becoming more openly discussed, UCD’s Agri Mental Health Group hopes to drive research and awareness.
Established in 2022, the group was originally a collaboration between University College Dublin’s (UCD) School of Agriculture and Food Science and the School of Psychology. It has grown exponentially to now include professionals from South East Technological University (SETU) and Technical University Dublin (TUD) among its staff.
The stakeholder steering group also includes farmers, contractors, consultants, GPs, MEPs, counsellors, IFA chairs and HSE policy leads, among others, within mental health advocacy and agriculture.
Initial research carried out by the group in 2022 found that out of 256 farmers surveyed, ranging from ages 21 to 70 years old, the survey identified 23.4% of respondents were at risk of suicide. This meant that at the time of the survey, 60 of the responding farmers reported having suicidal thoughts and/or urges over the past two weeks.
A replication study conducted in 2024 with 457 responses found 22.8% of farmers were at risk of suicide, translating to 104 farmers having suicidal thoughts and/or urges over the past two weeks.
From that 2022 study, it was found 55.5% of respondents experienced moderate to extremely severe depression, 44.1% respondents reported experiencing moderate to extremely severe anxiety, and 37.9% reported experiencing moderate to extremely severe stress.
Dr Tomás Russell, programme director for the masters in agricultural extension and innovation, is a co-director of the mental health group. Through his masters programme, students are trained and equipped to work as agricultural advisers and within the agricultural industry. Students highlighted via their assignments the mental health issues of farmers and reported feeling ill-equipped to help guide farmers.
With this insight, and the reported need for an agricultural-specific mental health group, Dr Russell formed the group, sharing the director role with Professor Louise McHugh from the School of Psychology at UCD.
Following funding from the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) alongside the group's expansion, it now covers several funded projects and research.
Through the group’s research, they were able to identify some of the top stressors for farmers — the two main stressors were Government policy and climate change.
"When we delved a bit deeper into that, we found that it wasn't necessarily the policies themselves, but it was actually the fact that farmers felt they didn't have a voice in those policies… That in turn established the ‘Sow What’ project, which is looking at a communication loop between policy makers, farmers and advisors around climate change, and with a sort of a mental health focus,” Dr Russell told the .
The Sow What and Farming Minds project are the two main ongoing funded projects with ‘Farming Minds’, aiming to develop evidence-based interventions to enhance farmers' mental health. The Farming Minds project in particular is a collaboration between UCD, SETU and the HSE funded ‘On Feirm Ground’ farmers' health training programme.
Other smaller projects running in the background are the Dying to Farm Phase 2, which is funded by the National Office for Suicide Prevention, and the other project is funded by the FBD Trust to develop testing for the feasibility and effectiveness of scalable mental health interventions for Irish farmers.
The UCD Agri Mental Health Group is also collaborating with the likes of Macra na Feirme on its ‘Make the move’ programme and working alongside DCU’s associate professor Siobhan O’Connor and Dr Anna Donnla O'Hagan.
A recent study published alongside DCU looked into work-family conflict on family farms. With 99.7% of farms in Ireland being classified as family farms, work and home life are intrinsically linked.
The study found work-family conflict is common among farmers and their families.
Work-family conflict was reportedly higher if the farmers were younger, male, had children under five, were dairy or mixed farmers, had a larger farm size, worked longer hours than the average, had a higher attachment to the farm, and experienced more farm-specific stressors.
Mental health, alongside those factors, was significantly correlated with low social support and lower levels of psychological skills.
Part of the group’s work is to train and host workshops for Teagasc advisers and private consultants to help provide services for farmers to work through stressors and increase psychological flexibility, via acceptance therapy. As part of the ongoing research, the training will progressively spread across the country after the initial success of a few focus groups.
The research aims to build on advisers' skills and experiences and train them to deliver psycho-education to farmers. Research argues that farmers will be more open to support from those who know and understand farming contexts.
Through anonymous surveys, the UCD’s Agri Mental Health Group is able to collect data from farmers, the anonymity also enabling more honest answers from farmers who can respond in the privacy of their own homes.
“In all the work that we are doing, we have always had good engagement with the farming community and industry. Farmers recognise the significance of the issue in the farming community and appreciate the need for research and support in this area.”
If you or someone you know may need support, there are services available. For mental health services, Pieta offers a 24-hour crisis helpline as well as services provided by the HSE and Samaritans.
Bereavement or injury support services are available via Embrace Farm, and the Irish Farmers’ Association operates a confidential debt support helpline. Farmers can also contact their Teagasc advisers if seeking more information on support services.
