By Angus Kebbell
As farms get larger, as they get more corporatised, the 'local' in communities gets expanded. Your 'community' is no longer just 10 kms around you, now it is more like 100 kms. This is leading to higher risks of isolation, raising the risks of depression.
When farmers or workers are under stress, decision making falters. And that can lead to worse outcomes.
And there is a lot to be stressed about these days. The challenge is to deal with it positively. The sigma of taking the first step is still with us, but farmers are more accepting once they do that.
Lindsay Wright, an early mover in the Good Yarn initiative, has been involved from its early days in Southland in 2008. But the real take-off for Good Yarns was in 2014 in Gore.
Good Yarn is a peer-led model where local people present the program to local people - a hands-on mental health support program for farmers. And to date more than 8500 people have been through these workshops at more than 750 events.
An example of farmer stress is farmers in Southland who worked together to address local water quality issues, only to see that work tossed by Wellington and the 'new' Fresh Water Initiative imposed - all with dates, deadlines and requirements that were unsuited and unsympathetic to the cycles of how their rural community works. Work underway was overwhelmed by a tidal wave bureaucracy from Wellington.
Worse, no acknowledgement is given for those prior initiatives. The changes the community were seeking involve long-haul changes, as does the imposed program. The stress and buy-in for any 'new' program importantly needs to recognise the work and interim progress, otherwise disillusionment will set in. Good Yarn can keep farmers healthy and feeling supported to a significant degree but it too could be overwhelmed by 'Wellington'. Recognition for ongoing interim progress will be the only way these ultimate goals can be achieved.
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Angus Kebbell is the Producer at Tailwind Media. You can contact him here.
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