Challenges of Farming

How to get the most from farming without letting it destroy your life: Part 1

Farming can be a very stressful occupation.   You as a farmer and your family face many challenges on a daily basis.  These challenges can leave you feeling very stressed and unhappy.

In this article, I examine the challenges posed in farming today.  I will then look at your life and encourage you to examine how these farming challenges are impacting your life and how they can lead to numerous problems for you and the people around you.  I also look at how you can deal with this stress, create a vision for your future and set goals that will help you achieve that vision.  This will enable you to create the space so that you can solve your problems and enjoy life.  So, I ask how might you as a farmer improve your circumstances when faced with the challenges that farming brings.

Challenges of Farming

A complex occupation

Farming is much more complex today than it was forty or fifty years ago.  The Teagasc National Farm Survey 2019 Sustainability Report points out that world-wide farming faces the challenge of producing food for a growing population, while minimising the environmental impacts of food production especially in terms of climate change, water quality and biodiversity loss.

Irish farmers also face worries about BREXIT.  Some farmers feel under pressure to meet cross compliance requirements and when dealing with Government agencies. Animal welfare and the concern about animal disease on the farm such as the presence of TB (tuberculosis) has become a major worry for many Irish farmers.

Due the nature of their work and where they live, isolation and loneliness can exacerbate the problems.  Hours of work can be very long when full time farming or due to off farm employment.  Many farmers are concerned about what the future holds for the farm with no obvious successor to take over.  COVID-19 may well have made the situation worse.

Dr. Harry Barry, expert on mental health and emotional resilience, claims that the vast majority of stress and anxiety in everyday life is due to a mixture of life crises rather than any serious mental illness.  Yet, if these issues are not tackled, they can lead to all sorts of problems including anxiety and depression.

Weather

While there is very little we can do about the weather, it can be a cause of concern for farmers.  Extreme weather events appear to be common in recent years.  Repeated reports of severe flooding, storm force winds or even hurricanes appear to be on the increase.  Whether these are the result of climate change or not they can leave the most resilient of farmers in a stressed-out state.

Environment

The impact of farming on the environment is an ever-increasing concern and worry for farmers.  The production of greenhouse gas emissions from farm animals and the resulting impact on climate change is frequently being highlighted in the media.  On the one hand there is an increasing need for food production to feed a growing world population.  Farmers and scientists must find a way to produce this food while minimising the negative impact on the environment.

Financial worries

Both Teagasc and IFAC figures repeatedly show there are serious issues around poor income and financial worries on many farms throughout Ireland.  Teagasc define farm-households as fitting into one of three categories with approximately one third of all farms fitting into each category:

• Economically viable: This is where the Family Farm Income is sufficient to pay family labour at a basic wage plus a small return on the capital invested in assets such as machinery and livestock.  This group is dominated by Dairy farms plus tillage farms with a small number of large-scale cattle and sheep farms.
• Sustainable: This is where income from the farm on its own is insufficient to make the household economically viable.  However, there is off-farm income within the household to make it economically sustainable. This group has farms from all enterprises but is dominated by cattle and sheep farms.
• Vulnerable:  This is where the household is operating a non-viable farm business and neither the farmer or spouse works off-farm.  Like the sustainable group, this group includes farms from a range of enterprises but is also dominated by cattle and sheep farms.

At first glance, the immediate concern is for those in the vulnerable category due to their low household income.  Without doubt, these are of concern.  Shortage of money can cause all sorts of problems.  However, all may not be well in the other two categories.

Viable and sustainable farms are still affected by the issues discussed above and may even be affected to a greater extent by some of the issues.  I will look at this later as it applies to specific farmers.  But for now, we will accept there are many issues that cause stress and you need to address these sooner rather than later.

In the next part, I will discuss how farming may be having a negative effect on your life and we will look at some solutions that you can use to overcome the challenges.