#MindYourHead
The CLA supports Yellow Wellies – The Farm Safety Foundation’s 6th Annual Mind Your Head campaign
This week (13th – 17th February) marks the 6th annual Mind your Head week supported by Yellow Wellies.
The UK’s farming community have faced a challenging few years with uncertainty surrounding Brexit, a global pandemic, war in Ukraine affecting imports and exports and now a cost of living crisis.
In their most recent research, Yellow Wellies surveyed 450 UK farmers under the age of 40. 94% of them agreed that the biggest hidden problem facing the industry today is poor mental health. Three years ago, this figure was only 84%. The same survey was carried out on 450 UK farmers over the age of 40 and the levels of well-being in older farmers were even lower.
Levels of mental well-being in farming are deteriorating and can have a direct impact on safety behaviours in the industry that has the poorest safety record in the UK. The Mind Your Head campaign is so important because we need to raise awareness of the challenges facing our industry and the numbers of farmers and farm workers struggling with poor mental health right now. We have to encourage those living and working in farming to take concrete actions to support their own mental health, and to support friends and family who may struggling; We also need to make the general public aware of the challenges farmers face to put food on our plates and we want urgent action at all levels to support the ongoing mental health of our farmers and farming community
Our Membership Relations Manager Richard Hollingsworth attended the LAMMA show back in January where one of the main priority subjects was mental health awareness within the farming sector, highlighting that mental health awareness is coming to the forefront and is getting more attention.
You can learn more by following @yellowwelliesUK on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and their latest edition of The Little Book of Minding Your Head is available to download here.
Want to talk to someone? The Farming Community Network have a helpline which is open everyday of the year from 7am to 11pm. Find out more here.