High suicide rates among farmers have been linked to a masculine workforce which “finds it harder to talk about their issues”.
This is according to Kris Ambler of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), who told Agriland that cultural barriers are responsible for men finding it hard to speak out about their struggles.
“Suicide is higher amongst men,” Ambler said. “They find it hard to talk; that’s one of the reasons, some men find it harder to talk about these issues.”
“I think that’s improving,” he added. “But amongst older farmers in particular and their families, it’s still a really big issue.”
Officer for National Statistics (ONS) figures show that men aged 45 to 64 years have had the highest rates of suicide since 2010 and around three quarters of suicides in 2021 were males.
According to the BACP, three people in the UK farming and agricultural industry die by suicide every week.
As well as the cultural barrier of a predominantly masculine workforce, Ambler said small rural communities can lead to more “bottling up” of feelings as people fear they will be put under a spotlight.
“Rural communities can be a really great source of strength because everybody knows each other, but actually it can also be a barrier to help-seeking behaviour because people think ‘I don’t want to do my dirty laundry in public’,” Ambler said.
“Another thing is the fears that some farmers have of disclosure, so they think ‘I disclose that I’ve got a mental health problem, I’ll lose my shotgun license’ or ‘I won’t have access to fertiliser’, and things like that.
“Again, that leads to sort of bottling things up and keeping things inside and, where people don’t have an outlet, quite often that can lead to suicide and suicidal thoughts.”
The cost-of-living crisis
The BACP has said that it fears suicide rates in rural communities across the UK will rise due to the cost-of-living crisis.
This fear was echoed by Ambler, who said that times of wider economic hardship lead to a rise in suicide rates.
“I think it’s true to say that whenever there’s times of economic hardship and recession, suicide rates increase. There’s a close relationship with them, and we’ve seen this before in this sector and others,” he said.
“We saw that in lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic and there are issues there, obviously, of isolation, but a lot of people were cut off from financial support from the government, particularly people in self employment.
“Increasingly, for more and more people in rural communities, their debt will increase alongside debt and financial pressures, and then we typically see an increase in suicide.”
The additional financial pressure being brought on farmers and those in rural communities by the cost-of-living crisis is “tipping people over the edge”, Ambler said.
The BCAP offers an online directory on its website where people can find a qualified therapist in their area, for themselves or for someone else, who can help if they are going through a tough time.
