Farmer Focus: Poor rural mobile signal adds to summer stress

Managing stress is challenging. Small things cause you to lose control.

My trigger at the moment is rural phone signal. Every time I try to receive a phone call on the move and the signal drops out, I end up swearing at the heavens and my chest gets another notch tighter.

Firstly, shame on the network providers for neglecting rural England.

Moreover, I’ve realised that like many arable farmers this year, I am carrying a huge amount of accumulated stress.

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About the author

Robert Scott

Robert Scott farms 1,450ha of arable in mid-west Norfolk for seven different landowners. He grows combinable crops and sugar beet together with cover crops, grass leys and extensive countryside stewardship schemes. He also finishes 2,000 lambs a year. robert@thscottandson.co.uk Instagram: @thscottandson

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Poor phone signal doesn’t help when I’m trying to check in on my peers either. In recent conversations with close friends, the undercurrent of financial stress is palpable.

Stripped of subsidies, suffering excessive input costs and flat commodity markets, the remaining arable family businesses I know are finding farming very hard and questioning what we’re even doing.

Those conversations have touched on what crops we dare to grow next year, current proximity to the overdraft limit, and already taking advances on grain sales earmarked for the autumn. The red flags are evident. 

As an industry, we must look out for one another’s mental health during these tough times. Our personal attitudes do not exist in a vacuum; positivity can radiate through a team but, equally, depressive chatter is highly infectious.

This is especially true with staff. If the boss is constantly forecasting doom, that heavy atmosphere quickly filters down to the workshop, draining the exact energy and drive we need for the long hours ahead this harvest. We need to actively guard our narrative.

Thankfully, some light relief arrived this month when I hosted my mother’s Brooksby College friends for their reunion farm tour.

Showing a group of interested, lifelong agriculturists around our small home farm was a fantastic reminder of why we do this, and how far our business has come in the past 10 years. Their nostalgia and enthusiasm for farming provided a welcome tonic.

With the combine about to roll and the grain stores clean, my wife, Flo, little Harry and I slipped away for a quick break on the coast.

Getting off the farm entirely, even for just a few days, is essential to reset the mind before the madness of harvest begins. Take care of yourselves, and each other this month.