18 November 2024
Weathering the storm
Farming can be a uniquely stressful occupation, with farmers often feeling subjected to changes outside their control. Joint research from Teagasc and Dublin City University seeks to understand these sources of stress.
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The occupation of farming is filled with uncertainty, as farmers contend with changes in their work, the weather, and European and Irish agricultural policies. FarMHealth is a collaborative project between Teagasc and Dublin City University that aims to empower farmers to maintain their wellbeing and resilience. Part of this lies in better identifying and determining uncertainty in farming, and its ramifications, says Joseph Firnhaber, Research Officer at Teagasc Ashtown.
“A useful concept to understand how this uncertainty may impact farmers’ health is ‘liminality’ – the experience of being caught on the threshold between one thing and the next, or caught in the midst of rapid changes,” he explains.
“While liminality can be stressful, it can also present people the opportunities for personal, mental or career growth. Therefore, we aimed to identify sources of occupational stress or wellbeing for Irish farmers, particularly regarding change in their lives and communities.”
The project collected data online through individual interviews with 17 farmers, and one interview and three focus groups with 11 farming stakeholders. Researchers used narrative analysis to identify how participants described various changes relevant to farming, Joseph adds: “As a result, we identified four central narratives, three of which were negative – Rapid Change; Governance Standards; Rural Isolation – and one positive: Wellbeing from Farming.”
In the first narrative, participants described how rapid changes to farming – whether due to policy, weather, or another source – rarely present opportunities to farmers. Instead, these changes create stress by increasing uncertainty and threatening farmers’ financial security. As one participant expressed it:
“You have so little control over so much of what you do [it’s] actually just […] constant stress.”
Participants specifically identified how smaller family farms, and the family farming lifestyle, are being “eradicated” by these changes.
“Money is the overriding stress factor with farmers. If their mental health is bad it’s because of money […] The smaller family farms used to be really big, the backbone of the farming community in Ireland [but now] it’s a long slow death for most of us.”
Cast as ‘bad guys’
In Governance Standards, the second narrative, participants described how farmers feel stressed, caught between competing policy and governance standards in farming. They highlighted how recent environmental policy changes may be stressful to farmers mainly because they conflict with recent guidance to intensify their businesses:
“While farmers were told for years to ‘just put cows on the ground’ […] Now we’re being told, ‘hang on, you’ve put too many cows out there’ […] Can’t but put your head in a […] bad place.”
Importantly, participants didn’t oppose environmental policies on principle. Instead, negative feelings stemmed from a sense that recent policies cast farmers as the ‘bad guys’ for following previous guidelines, rather than recognising their important role:
“We’re doing our good and our bad, but in the main world we’re also providing a very important thing, which is food for eating, which […] we need more than lots of other things in the world.”
The third central narrative was Rural Isolation. Here, participants described how stressful changes have played out in farming communities as well. These communities are growing more isolated and less cooperative, and the whole identity of rural life and the work of farming is being challenged. As the culture becomes increasingly focused on remaining economically competitive, farmers are “being isolated even more”:
“Look at rural Ireland long ago when the door was open […] there was no rural isolation back then, you know […] If there was a job required on the farm they were all around helping you know. That’s […] not there now.”
New and old pressures
In the sole positive narrative to come out of the study, Wellbeing from Farming, participants highlighted the traditional work of farming – such as being active, working with animals and family, and working in nature – as the main source of wellbeing in agriculture. This was the only point of stability that participants described in an occupation otherwise felt to be rapidly changing in a negative way.
“That’s […] milking for me […] I absolutely love milking because it’s time for me, and it’s just me and cows. Now, the girls do milk a good bit with me but like it even gives us the chance to have a conversation where sometimes we’d be passing each other […] I literally do my best thinking inside the parlour.”
Effectively, these farmers and farming stakeholders described farmers as caught in a stressful and liminal state: struggling to stay afloat amidst rapid economic and cultural change, concludes Joseph.
“They painted a very pessimistic picture of the current state of Irish farming, with many of the changes at the expense of farmers and their communities’ mental health, and very few opportunities.”
The researchers’ analyses illustrate how these cultural, political and economic changes can impact farmers’ identities and wellbeing as they grapple with new and old occupational pressures.
“Our study suggests that economic policy and agricultural governance prioritise farmers’ financial security and mental health, and acknowledge farmers’ importance to the country, and their valuable contributions to rural life.”
Funding
This research was part of Dublin City University’s FarMHealth project funded by grant 2021R510 from the Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine, and supported by Teagasc.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the contribution of study interview participants and all study authors.
Contributors
Joseph Firnhaber, Research Officer, Rural Economy and Development, Teagasc Ashtown.
Anna Donnla O’Hagan, Assistant Professor, School of Health and Human Performance, Dublin City University.
John McNamara, Health and Safety Specialist, Teagasc Kildalton College.
Siobhán O’Connor, Associate Professor, School of Health and Human Performance, Dublin City University.
You can read the full paper here.
Read more about the FarMHealth project on the project website.