Farmer Focus: Kindness in the farming community is humbling

Recently I spent an enjoyable evening at a pub quiz organised by “We Are Farming Minds”, a charity bringing together farmers across Herefordshire to combat poor mental health.

I think this is very important because many farmers will have faced struggles, and are often without the support other industries may offer.

My wife and I are preparing for our third child to arrive. For us this is a time of anxiety and worry, as our first child was sadly stillborn at 37 weeks.

See also: Mental health survey reveals how often Scots farmers take holidays

While obviously a devastating and heart-breaking thing to befall anyone, I can be proud of how we overcame this tragedy and were able to cope.

In no small part, agriculture and its wider community were a tremendous help.

Life and death are ever present on a livestock farm – and often heart-breaking.

It is this connection to the natural world, and the understanding that these things happen, unforeseen and often unexplained, which helped me to deal with the loss.

Life is brutal, and no more so than in farming. And when things do go wrong, it can often be an incredibly isolating place.

Farming friends, acquaintances, and people who have experienced similar tragedies, reached out and offered their support.

Whether that was a hand on the shoulder or a kind word at our local market, the delivery of a home-cooked meal or an offer to help with the workload, the sense of community in agriculture is something we should cherish and yet is often taken for granted and underappreciated.

The people I see throughout the working week, whether that be at market, a visit from the agronomist or sales rep, contractors, or just other local farmers, are often the only personal interactions outside of family I may have.

And when busy lives get in the way of socialising, these take on even more significance.

Challenges such as grain prices, budget announcements and spiralling amounts of paperwork seem to be creating a lot of uncertainty and doubt in farming at the moment – unless, of course, you’ve got a lot of fat cattle to sell.

But we must always remember that these things shouldn’t be life or death, and that there is always someone to talk to.