Farmers face constant uncertainty: weather, politics and market fluctuations are all factors out of their control. Clinical psychologist Adri Prinsloo spoke to Lindi Botha about how this, combined with relative isolation, contributes to worrying levels of depression and suicide.
Studies conducted globally on farmers’ mental health have one thing in common: they show that farmers suffer a higher rate of suicide than any other working group.
While no studies have been conducted in South Africa on suicide and depression among farmers, studies in several other countries all show similar results. A 2014 Australian study, ‘Suicide and accidental death in Australia’s rural farming communities: A review of the literature’, found that farmers had a suicide rate one-and-a-half times that of the general population.
Another survey, the HUNT study performed in Norway, found that both male and female farmers had higher levels of depression symptoms than those of the general working population. In addition, the differences in these levels between farmers and the general working population increased with age.
This study also found that few occupations had undergone more profound changes in recent decades than farming, and the number of Norwegian farmers had decreased.
Despite geographical and political differences, the same trends can be seen in most industrialised countries, and the demands and stressors that farmers face appear to be similar across borders.
In South Africa, as in Norway, occupational stressors unique to farmers, such as the physical environment, family structure, farm economy and bureaucracy, have in recent years been aggravated by structural and economic changes in agriculture.
EXTREMITIES
Adri Prinsloo, a clinical psychologist at the University of Pretoria, who specialises in gender and mental health, says farmers are required to have a broad base of knowledge and skills, from crop or livestock production, to engineering and economic skills, as well as public relations.
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