A LACK of appreciation and understanding of the work farmers do and the pressures they’re under is contributing to loneliness and mental health issues within the industry, a study has found.

The study, conducted by the University of Exeter and the Farming Community Network (FCN), interviewed a selection of farmers in order to further understand the link between the profession and mental health issues such as anxiety, depression and loneliness.

In the study, titled ‘It’s a lonely old world: Developing a multidimensional understanding of loneliness in farming’, researchers from the University of Exeter’s Centre for Rural Policy Research and the FCN explored the causes of feelings of isolation and loneliness in farming communities.

The study, involving in-depth interviews with 22 farmers and six farm support practitioners, primarily found that the farmers interviewed felt undervalued, identifying a feeling of ‘disconnect’ between farmers and wider society, and a lack of understanding from the general public about what is involved in farming and its unique pressures.

Some of the farmers interviewed had been subjected to abusive behaviour, including being sworn at during the course of their working day.

Loneliness was also found in the study to be linked to mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.

Stephen Dennis, a local farmer at Burston Farm and regional lead for the FCN, helped to coordinate the study with the local farming community.

‘As the regional lead for the FCN, we helped to connect the study to local farmers,’ said Stephen, ‘but as a local farmer myself, I was very much interested in the results myself.

‘The study was trying to find out a few things – some of the study was giving evidence to what we already knew and some of it was new information. We were basically trying to find out why farmers feel the way that they do.’

One farmer that was part of the study, but who wished to remain anonymous, said: ‘In the local village the demographic has completely changed in the past 20 years.

‘And you get sly comments or something from a footpath walker or you quite often get…someone flicking you the Vs on the road, or beeping their horn because you’re in the tractor.

‘So you get the sense that the local community isn’t really your best friend. You feel a bit of an alien on your own doorstep.’

The study also found that farmers are keen to highlight the vital role they play in producing food, and the positive actions they are taking to care for and improve the environment, but feel these are often overlooked in media stories about agriculture and environmental issues such as climate change.

Stephen said: ‘Good farmers are good environmentalists by nature.

‘I think that people would be surprised at the generational wisdom farmers have built up on the environment

‘The media generally focuses on the negative aspects of farming. You turn on the news and they concentrate on negativity all the time. For instance, there’s a common view in the media is that what we should be doing is ploughing up every acre of grassland and turning it into trees.

‘The truth of the matter is, as shown by research up at North Tauton is that when you look into the carbon sink and what absorbs carbon and things like that, grass regrowth is one of the best things you can have – every time grass grows, it’s more of a carbon sink than growing trees.

‘But you don’t get that message usually, because it doesn’t fit the desire or framework of certain views or interests in the media.

‘Most farmers have spent their lives trying to look after the environment, to then be blamed for it is painful – I think that’s where a lot of the disconnect is felt between the public and the farming community.’

The researchers recommend the need to strengthen connections between farming and non-farming communities in order to avoid farmers feeling isolated from society.

This could include enhancing opportunities for community engagement with agriculture, improving public dialogue, promoting local food networks, and fostering a more positive and empathetic approach from Government and regulators.

For Stephen, his main recommendation is to strengthen the link between local food producers and the public: ‘If you can keep everything as local as possible – it may not be the cheapest, but buying the cheap may not be the best for the environment, for food standards nor for quality – people need to understand that food has a cost to it and it really needs to be understood as much as other issues such as energy and the like.’