A FARMING charity is urging the industry's workers to start looking after themselves mentally as well as physically – highlighting the awful statistic that, on average, more than one agricultural worker a week in the UK dies by suicide.

Levels of depression in the industry are thought to be increasing and suicide rates in agricultural workers are among the highest in any occupational group. Risk of suicide was also higher amongst those in certain sectors, particularly livestock rearing, which has almost twice the national average.

In an industry with the poorest safety record of any occupation in the UK, the Farm Safety Foundation, the charity behind Farm Safety Week, has identified stress as a key factor in many of the accidents, injuries and illnesses taking place on farms. Unfortunately, stress is an unavoidable feature of farm businesses, coming from many sources, whether financial pressures resulting from market fluctuations, livestock disease or poor harvests, or less tangible concerns about Brexit, policies, administration and legislation.

That pressure is compounded by the fact that farming has an innately conservative culture, with some still perceiving a stigma attached to mental health, hindering people’s willingness to speak about the issue and to seek help for themselves.

The Farm Safety Foundation’s has now launched the ‘Mind Your Head’ Campaign to encourage farmers and farming families not to neglect themselves, but to put themselves first, ‘open up’ and get some help and advice on whatever concerns they have.

Fronting this effort, after an extraordinary journey from the depths of depression to becoming a respected international rugby referee, former president of the Wales Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs, Nigel Owens, 46, from Carmarthenshire, is all too aware of how easily things can get out of hand when you allow stress to take over your life.

In his mid-twenties, Nigel lacked self-esteem about the way he looked and was ashamed about being homosexual. Coming from a small farming community, he did not want anyone to know and did not know where to turn. This, he admitted, led him down a dark path where he became addicted to steroids and suffered from bulimia. On one particular occasion he tried to take his own life at the top of Bancyddraenen Mountain, overlooking the village he had lived in all his life, Mynyddcerrig. Thankfully, he didn’t succeed and he received help to get him mentally well.

Nigel said: “The mind is a powerful tool which can be positive and helpful, as well as negative and destructive. From experience, if we don’t open up and talk about how we’re feeling and what we are struggling with, we can end up becoming anxious and depressed. I’m delighted to support the ‘Mind Your Head’ Campaign because the farming community need to know they are not alone and that there should be no taboo about asking for help.”

The Farm Safety Foundation has the support of key organisations in Scottish agriculture, including RSABI and SAYFC for this initiative, and working together they hope that farmers and their families will know where, when and how to seek help when they need it.