Victor Boyhan on Farm Stress, Inheritance and Mental Health

Senator Bohan. Okay, thank you. First, I want to welcome the IFA and Chagas, and I want to thank Alice particularly, because I read her IFA submission in detail, I know you didn't have an opportunity to go through it in full. So I just want to touch, and also to Chagas, and to say, well done again on your Sowing the Seeds of Support document, it's a fantastic document, and there's an overlap, clearly an overlap between the two of you and your submissions here today. I suppose I just want to touch on a few things, we talk about farmers under stress, we didn't need the UCD report to confirm what we already know, for those who are related to farmers or people in the Agricultural and Rural Community, we know the issues of what they are, so we know that there is this issue of uncertainty, isolation, it's a lot of complexities, there are a lot of farmers that to no fault of their own, whatever, live on their own, there's the burden of inheritance, the responsibility of keeping on the family tradition, not letting the place go to rack and ruin, or not letting the place go out of the family, the famous expression, and with that comes pressures. And with that I spoke to a man recently said, you know, I said you're a very lucky man to have inherited a hundred acres in Wicklow, he said no, all the rest of them are gone, they've met partners, they've married, they've moved on, they've no responsibility, I'm left holding the can, an elderly mother who's now dead, and I'm alone, and I am isolated, and I am vulnerable, and I can't interact, and I really don't have social skills, what's that tell us? That's common, and family members who are similar, but there's no shame in all of that, because the one thing he could do is that he could articulate that, and that's progress. So I just want to touch quickly on a few issues, and I have only one question. The inheritance and succession is a big issue here, there's no question of that. The TB, issues around the TB, and the fear of that is an issue. The issue of taxation, or the lack of taxation compliance, through an element of not knowing, or fear of raising their head above the parapet with revenue, is an issue of concern. The late payments for acres, the department that reneged on commitments to farmers, who had budgeted, and expected the money to be paid in good stead, the green waste, the cutting through of farmers' lands, and the issues around CPO, I could go on and on, I'm just going to say one thing, acres, advance payments, I spoke to a farmer the other day, and he said that he had received the advance payments, only to have over 50% of them clawed back. Now wouldn't that give you nightmares, particularly if you've spent it, you're in trouble, you are in real trouble. So look, we need good mental health for our farmers, we need good mental health for everybody, it impacts on our judgement and how we do our business and how we live. And what do we want for our farmers, as we want for everybody else, we want them to have the potential to be themselves, to be authentic, to be happy, and to be content, and do the work that they love on the land. So I ask you just this one question, to the IFA and to Chagas to lesser extent, funding, you do receive government funding, but I don't know how much you receive, I don't know how it's applied fully, so you might just share with me on the funding, both people, what's the funding, and how is that distributed, and do you need more funding. And then hand over to my colleague, Senator Bohan just mentioned about what funding we get, well I don't have the exact funding off hands, it's in our annual report and it's laid before the houses of the Oireachtas, you know, but the funding is there. Now what our focus on, you know, we have approximately, let's see, I have the number there, we have about 385 advisors in round figures, you know, and the focus of what we're doing there is to maximise the contact between farmers and to target people towards mental health services. So our role is to focus farmers in the right direction. You know, just the next question regarding the Charter of Rights, you know, it's something I will bring back to our senior management. No, the question is, what service do we have? In our statement we mentioned on firm ground, we're training up advisors, you know, Department of Health and Department of Agriculture funded to assist farmers, and you know, we're integrating our service into advisory, you know, work, you know, so that's an issue there. You know, Senator Daly, you know, you made the point about, you know, the hard to reach, you know, about a third of farmers are clients of Chagish, about a third are clients of the private consultants, and then there's a third that are not in contact with anyone. The firm ground, those consultants are involved in that as well, so we're seeking to maximise the reach. You know, farmers are, you know, self-employed, and, you know, they run their own affairs, so we seek to encourage them through communications and through events, you know, to come and talk to us, so we're always trying to increase our numbers. I think Senator Brady mentioned the stress on farmers in particular, so maybe I might just hand over to my colleague on that particular matter. Okay, so I'm going to pick up on a couple of issues here, and I'll link one or two statements and questions that were made. So, Senator Boylan mentioned the issue of TB as a key stressor, and Senator Daly mentioned, asked a question about how do we access farmers and how do we reach farmers outside of the representative organisations in Chaga services, and this is where engaging with others becomes really important. This is where involving vets in training programmes, involving inspectors that are going out from various different organisations, not just DAFM, but a range of organisations, and working on farms with farmers to provide them with the skills, and enabling them to develop those skills through on farm ground. In terms then of, there was a question asked about whether or not, Deputy Fister Morris asked the question whether there's a dedicated section within Chagas working in this area. What we've done in Chagas is developed a dedicated research strand within the Rural Economy programme, and I'm the head of department for the Agri-Food Business and Spatial Analysis Unit, and within that we've a dedicated research section that comprises a number of researchers working on this issue. We collaborate really closely with our advisory colleagues and our education colleagues in order to integrate the services that we're developing into the day-to-day interactions that we have with farmers, and that is really, really important. We don't want to single out people or stigmatise mental health in any way, we want to integrate the supports that we're providing into our day-to-day contacts with farmers. My colleagues will answer some of the questions. I'll take the first one which came from Deputy Fitzmaurice, and basically on the farmers' rights charter. I wasn't in on the drawing up of that, but I have read it numerous times, and whereas I cannot say definitively that there is anything about mental health in it or not in it, I can tell you that it obviously isn't very clear in it because it's not coming to my mind at this point in time, and if it was, it would be there. Now having said that, a lot of the time when we were trying to draw up the different conditions and terms within that farmers' rights, we looked at, you know, I suppose covertly, how the department pay us and the lack of time, the long time it takes to pay us, and the stress that that causes on farms, and I'm afraid we didn't get much of a reaction on that. It's still 14 days for us to respond, but a lot longer for the department to respond if there's an issue. My colleague Claire will take the one on funding for Deputy Weyland. Thank you very much. Yes, so just last year we ran, IFA ran a successful farmer health check project, as you're all aware, and in partnership with Cree and funded by the Department of Agriculture, and we thanked the Department of Agriculture for this funding. We received €210,000 to carry out 1,000 health checks for last year's project. We carried out this very successfully. There was a huge uptake from our farmers on the ground, so we went back into the department this year and we've been funded €250,000 for 2,000 health checks, so double the scale of the project this year. And so I suppose with our project, we committed to doing something different. We wanted to meet the farmers on the ground. We wanted to go to somewhere where they felt comfortable, where they felt that they could engage with us. So I suppose we set up in various marts around the country. This wasn't just for convenience, I suppose it was to meet the farmers there, that they felt comfortable, there was respect, there was trustworthy there amongst us as IFA and Cree as the nurses. So I suppose that's, if we want to continue to reach these vulnerable people or vulnerable farmers in these areas, this is something that we need to consider on a yearly basis. Funding is available to continue this project. We have met these people on the ground. The recommendations and the feedback from the farmers has been exceptionally good. We've had a huge uptake. So I suppose IFA are very proud to have achieved such a successful project last year and we are really looking forward to carrying out this project again in the coming weeks. Theresa Rochus, Chair of our Farm and Family, will take the question and on how we got to these vulnerable people. Thank you very much. Yes, I think our project has shown and identified I think one of the most serious and I suppose sectors in our, which is our most vulnerable sector, which is agriculture. I think we have to accept and highlight that there's a, you know, the mental health and the wellbeing of our farmers is priority in agriculture. We would say the most vulnerable sector needs are the challenges that farmers face. Our project for the Farmer Health Check Programme highlighted at least 23 red flags that showed the challenges that farmers face each day. And these challenges can be anything from the likes you mentioned earlier, TB, which is disease on farms, domestic issues, lack of succession planning, accidents, you know, illnesses that occur due to farm accidents and fatalities on farms down to wellbeing issues. And I suppose the vulnerable sector are often the most that don't access the services. So with our Farmer Health Check Programme, we wanted to change behaviours and attitudes. If you can change the behaviours and attitudes of farmers and their families, this is open to men and women and their young adults, that people can access this service in the most vulnerable, in the most rural communities. And people, we met them, as Claire's mentioned, the most isolated communities. We want to bring the services to them so that they can reach their needs. We're coming to them and we're offering a professional service, a full health check, that people, we're also preventative care, we're all about preventative care, making people aware of their health and their wellbeing and their mental health. And if we can improve their health and wellbeing and their mental health, they're going to make better decisions on their farm, better financial decisions. They're going to make better, safer decisions on their farm through farm safety. And they're going to also make, I suppose, make a better income overall. Their farmers will be productive in the long term. And I suppose what we want to show that farmers are very, very vulnerable in relation to environmental sectors. And, you know, and you can talk about storms, and we can talk about different issues on the ground that make us, I think, I think we have to protect our farming community overall. Thank you. I'll take the next...