This was in the Telegraph today. The sight of a field of cattle in East Sussex nowadays is rare indeed. I had not realised things had got so bad, maybe you hadn't either:
A couple of different issues there. I dont think farming has ever been easy. But then you do still see the big ones that make a lot of money out of it. Maybe its like everything these days, you change or die.
There is lots of stress in farming Jenny, I think its the main reason why farmers are one of the highest groups likely to commit suicide.
I wonder what their rate is compared to other groups or UK as a whole? I suspect it may be greater. Can anyone enlighten me please? Jenny
Its also a very lonely job, when I fitted a CB to the van, all I could here driving along the A303 was farmers talking to each other from their tractors. Imagine spending all day alone in a tractor for weeks on end.
Apart from the brief insight we have from "Countryfile" which is somewhat contrived to make it entertaining I suspect, we know very little about farmers really. I tend to take the produce they give me for granted. And we gardeners think that its been a rough old Winter..... Jenny
Not sure how accurate this statement is? [QUOTE]Figures show that farmers are nearly twice as likely to commit suicide as the general population and are ranked fourth, behind veterinarians, pharmacists and dentists, in the suicide rankings by profession.[/QUOTE]
As "sole traders" there is a lot of financial and other types of responsibility on one set of shoulders and often no training for the economic management it now entails. Farmers are hands-on people in the main, and it is a matter of luck whether you also have book-keeping skills. Added to that is the feeling that it is a lifetime vocation and commitment, an inescapable part of your identity, so to fail and lose your land and home is unthinkable - for hereditary farmers, at least.
For farmers, it's been a wet old winter - which means they can't get on the land with machinery to get on with any sort of cultivation until it has dried out sufficiently. As a gardener you would understand that but the average Jo Public wouldn't.
I think I've read that the way dentists get paid - i.e. the money they get per customer, makes managing the work quite stressful. But that's a very basic reading of the situation!
The 4 mile lake that was stretching from my village to Muchelney has gone now. Not all the grass has died as was expected. There are a lot of ruined hay bales in the fields though. The huge dairy farm has not got a single cow in it though, the floods & the price they were getting for milk has pushed them to breaking point. Don't know whats going to happen to the fields now.
my hubby has worked with pigs for well over 20yrs and has been made redundant repeatedly because of bankrupt farms, swine fever & foot & mouth. Personally, I think some of the problem is that hereditary farmers have gotten rarer. Being replaced with city/townsfolk who are sick of the rat race, but just "play" at farming cos they have no clue what they're doing. That's why the Gov are having to set up a scheme to help farmers learn how to farm again. Ridiculous, really.
