How mental health grew to be part of farming culture
How taking care of their mental health has become an integral part of life for farmers.
Dairy famer Glenda Gray remembers when former All Black John Kirwan opened up about depression, and the conversations it started within the Ngatea farming community.
Not many people spoke about mental health before then, but with mental and physical health programmes like Farmstrong offering farmers a helping hand the message is being kept alive.
“I think health and wellbeing for farmers will now just become something they will want to be aware of and take note of, and it will become part of being a successful farmer,” said Gray.
Gray works on a dairy farm with her husband Neil. She got involved with Farmstrong when helping organise the Fit for Farming cycle tour in 2016 with Ian Handcock.
The Fit for Farming cycle tour is an annual event held in rural New Zealand to promote physical health.
Other Farmstrong initiatives include health checks by Doctor Tom, who travels to remote pubs in the local farming community, and often picks up on things such as heart disease and diabetes.
“Many of them don’t bother going to the doctor because it takes an hour to get there,” said Gray.
Farmstrong was started in 2013 by Gerard Vaughan, who wanted a programme that supported farmers keeping themselves well in order to prevent mental illness.
“What I wanted to do was develop a programme to actually promote signs of wellbeing, the things you can do as a human being to keep yourself well,” said Vaughan.
The struggles farmers face now are what the Grays faced when they first started farming, and without organisations such as Farmstrong it was harder to bounce back.
“Initially when we started farming we had some really tough times. The low payouts and the bad weather that we’ve experienced in the last three years; we went through that exactly the same 25-30 years ago,” said Gray.
She believes farmers get through it easier now the help is available, and more initiatives are created.
“We’re probably in a good place to pass that message on to the next generation, because they probably think they’re more bulletproof,” said Gray.
“They probably aren’t aware of just how much of an impact Farmstrong has made on their ability to be resilient.”
Although the conversation is growing, Gray said there are still some that are scared to ask for help because of the stigma, but continued support will help reduce this over time.
“It’s sort of not rocket science, there’s been enough promotion of it but I still don’t think we do it enough, you need to take care of yourself.”
