Opinion: Mental health issues need empathy not appeasement
© SolStock/iStockphoto The second you say “mental health” in farming, some people switch off.
They don’t do it because they don’t care. Often it’s the opposite.
They care too much, don’t know what to say, don’t want to be seen as soft, or they’re already running on fumes and can’t face one more thing that feels like hard work.
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So if we actually want change – real change, not another poster and a well-meaning panel session – we need to get smarter about how we talk about it.
Because the biggest driver of poor mental health in farming isn’t a lack of awareness. It’s the habits and stories we keep repeating, year after year, like they’re laws of nature.
We’re far too good at confusing empathy with appeasement.
Empathy is hearing someone say “I’m not coping” and taking it seriously. Appeasement is replying with: “Yep. That’s farming for you”.
The latter sounds supportive. It sounds like solidarity. But it’s also a quiet agreement that nothing can change – and that agreement is costing us.
Part of the problem is we’ve built a culture where being knackered is admired.
Up since 4am? Haven’t had a day off in six months? Just crack on.
We rarely ask why. The “why” might seem obvious, but we should be more curious.
Why aren’t we challenging it – not with judgement or a lecture, but with a simple: How has that become normal?
If we can’t even question it, we definitely can’t change it.
I’m not unaware that this article will be published in the middle of lambing and calving.
There are weeks in the farming calendar when the job is genuinely relentless and you do what needs doing, but lambing, calving and harvest are chapters, not a permanent state of being.
We shouldn’t talk, and behave, as if the whole year has to feel like peak pressure.
Why do we accept a baseline where rest is something you earn through collapse, rather than something you plan for like any other part of running a business?
If we want change, we need to start challenging the culture that creates the problem, because farmers aren’t biologically built differently. Stress still does damage. Lack of sleep still affects judgement.
Constant pressure still takes a toll on decision-making, on relationships, on safety, on the business and on the enjoyment in the job.
And yet we keep telling ourselves the story that being worn down and miserable is just part of being a “proper” farmer.
Then we wonder why the next generation looks at the industry and thinks: “No thanks“.
I’d love to see more of us shining a light on the farms and businesses that have consciously changed things – ones that have built systems so one person isn’t carrying it all.
Ones that have made time-off possible, not because they’re lazy or lucky, but because they’ve treated quality of life as part of the business plan.
They not “soft”. They’re often the most switched-on operators.
But we don’t talk about them enough because it threatens the old badge-of-honour narrative.
It forces a question some people don’t want to touch: If they can do it differently… what does that say about the rest of us?
If the best we can do is nod sympathetically while people run themselves into the ground, we’re not being supportive, we’re being complicit.
And farming deserves better than that.