A recent study by rural charity, Farm Safety Foundation, also known as Yellow Wellies, revealed that 91% of British farmers rank poor mental health as the “biggest hidden problem” currently facing the sector.
A sample of 754 farmers were surveyed in September 2024 as part of the Farm Safety Foundations annual tracker research, which demonstrated waning mental health across the sector.
The research showed that, on average, farmers worked longer hours in 2024 than they did in 2023, which is significantly higher than hours worked in other sectors.
According to the Office for National Statistics, full-time workers in the UK do an average of 36.4 hours work per week.
However, as per the Farm Safety Foundation’s study, British farmers work an average of 60 hours a week, with 44% of those aged between 41 – 60 years working more than 81 hours a week.
The foundation points to longer working hours as a contributing factor to mental health decline in the sector.
The report also concluded that 33% of the farmers surveyed, who purportedly work more than nine hours a day, admit to having had or nearly missed having an accident in the past 12 months, indicating a correlation between long hours and poor farm safety.
The charity claimed that “traditional farm stressors, contextual stressors and barriers to support, coupled with the impact of measures announced in the autumn budget, are leading to increased levels of stress and uncertainty in the farming community”.
It has deemed farmers’ mental and physical wellbeing a priority for the industry and a “matter of life and death” as a result.
Mental health
The charity described the industry as having the poorest safety record of any occupation in the UK, pointing to Office for National Statistics figures which indicated that 44 suicides were registered in England and Wales among the farming and agricultural industry in 2022.
This week, February 10 – 14, 2025, marks the Farm Safety Foundation’s eighth annual Mind Your Head campaign, which aims to continue to raise awareness of the various challenges facing the UK’s farming industry and to destigmatise mental health within farming communities.
Farm Safety Manager, Stephanie Berkeley, observed: “Farming has always been one of the most demanding industries, but the added strain of long hours, rural isolation and financial insecurity is putting farmers at risk.
“For us to change the cultural reluctance to discuss mental health, we need to listen and learn what farmers are feeling, what their attitudes are, and what they are doing to address it themselves.”
The Farm Safety Foundation travelled to Carnoustie in Scotland on February 6, to launch ‘In Discussion With’, a new series of roundtable events devised to learn more about the thoughts and feelings of farming stakeholders in relation to mental wellbeing.
The event was the first of four roundtables planned across the UK in 2025 and gathered together some members of the Scottish Association of Young Farmers Clubs to learn about the challenges of loneliness and rural isolation in advance of its Mind Your Head campaign.
The Duke of Rothesay made a guest appearance on the day, joining the young farmers in conversation.
When asked why he was interested in their cause, Prince William said: “I love the countryside and I love farming as well and I am conscious that it’s an area that needs maybe a little bit of support and understanding, that there is access and support out there for young farmers.
“Because I think in the farming world it’s [mental health is] maybe not talked about as much as in other sectors, and yet we know it exists.”
The roundtable took place at East Scryne Fruit Farm, which is run by James and Kate Porter, who also showed Prince William some of the polytunnels damaged recently by Storm Éowyn.
“It was an absolute honour to have His Royal Highness join our roundtable. We are a small charity and have been running this campaign for eight years now so, to have such a high-profile guest interested in what we are doing gives the issue greater visibility,” Berkeley added.
