Charity Rural Support encourages farmers to reach out 'sooner rather than later for assistance'

Since 2002 Rural Support, the Farm Support Charity for Northern Ireland has supported the agricultural sector through the peaks, troughs and turbulence it has and continues to go through.

Rural Support treats every conversation with the utmost confidentiality and impartiality – they listen with the intent to understand a situation, not with the intent to reply with a quick fix.

Gyles Dawson, Director of Programmes, with Rural Support has many years of senior leadership experience in the agri business sector and leads the oversight and delivery of all crisis and non crisis support services.

He bridges strategic management with hands on empathy as a qualified counsellor, psychotherapist, and part-time farmer.

Gyles said they ‘stand by farmers and farm families for the long term, and its not uncommon for support to be provided on farms up to 2 years after an event’.

All their services are free of charge.

“We recently appointed a suicide awareness officer, this was due to the fact that two out of five calls rural support receives from clients are presenting suicidal ideology,” he said.

"This gives you an insight to the mental health status of many farmers.

"This is a very important role, the remit being education, networking, training and a clinical case load to address this mindset earlier rather than when its getting too late”.

Farmers are amongst the top three occupations that have the highest suicide rate, the other two being blue light occupations and vets.

“Farmers are generally very adaptive, resilient, optimistic people, but we have noticed in the last number of years a drop in this positivity, and as the days gets shorter, and most of the livestock are now housed, the workload increases and the working day gets longer,” said Giles.

“There are a number of additional factors outside of their normal working day that can impact that positive mental attitude of a farmer, things such agricultural policy changes, TB, Avian Flu and anxiety around the future of their own farms and the agricultural sector in general.

“Assistance with succession planning is another big part of Rural Supports work. We provide guidance around the farm business and facilitate those difficult conversations between the younger and older generations,” he added.

Sometimes it’s difficult to get a meeting of minds, but Rural Support’s broad skill set offers a bank of 19 business mentors and 15 mental health counsellors who help bridge those gaps.

"The aim is to rebuild trust and hopefully offer a positive outcome for the farm family and farm business,” said Gyles.

“Early intervention is key in these situations and Rural Support encourages farmers to reach out sooner than later for assistance.

“Anyone who has worked or currently works for Rural Support will tell you the work is very fulfilling and challenging, and it is a very humbling to see farmers, farm families and farm business in a much better position than when they first contacted us for help.

"We know well there is always stress for farmers, especially with the weather which can be the making or breaking of farming enterprises that are every weather dependant.

"None of the farming sectors are immune from difficulties, arable, poultry, pig, beef, dairy, sheep all have difficulties presently, and will continue to do so, and that’s why Rural Support has been around for the past 24 years, to give the support when required".

The charity and those who work for it understand agriculture, the pressures, the uncontrollable variables that can make such a significant impact of this way of life, because that’s what it is, a way of life.

"Farmers work where they live and live where they work, Rural Support get that and have had the privilege of helping countless numbers of people over the years and continue to support and engage in excess of 700 people a year through training, counselling, business mentoring, social farms, and other support programs,” he added.

Rural Support are a charity, and we depend very much on the generosity of the donors inside and outside of the agri sector, so we encourage anyone who wishes to help us to do so through a regular monthly giving plan for as little as £5 a month.

Rural Support shape its services on what the industry needs. They currently have a survey out to help them understand the needs of their clients.

The survey link can be found here : : https://agtech-research.typeform.com/RuralSupport#source=stakeholder and they would really value your input