The wellbeing of our farmers at Potters Poultry

Often when people hear the phrase ‘mental health’, they can feel intimidated, or assume that showing any struggles at all would be viewed as a sign of weakness.

But with a quarter of all adults in England likely to suffer from a mental health problem at some point in their life, according to the charity Mind, it’s important that we all feel able to open up and seek help.

Looking after our mental health should be an integral part of our everyday lives, but for the busy farming community it often plays second fiddle to paying attention to livestock, tending to crops and maintaining machinery.

Farmers work long hours, often in isolation, facing stress factors that put them at a greater risk of mental ill-health. Alarmingly, the Farm Safety Foundation found that four out of five farmers under 40 believe that mental health is the biggest hidden problem facing farmers today.

Therefore, it’s important to create a culture in farming that promotes positive mental health and ensures they know there’s help out there to manage their problems.

At our Virtual Open House in August, our director, Olivia Potter spoke about the importance of farm safety, the mental health of farmers at Potters Poultry and what we do to support them. A big part of this is supporting the Farm Safety Foundation and wearing yellow wellies!

Through educating, researching and communication, the Farm Safety Foundation has been able to increase their awareness from 27% in 2014 to 68% in 2019. It’s crucial to create conversations about farm safety and that’s why here at Potters we are proud to wear our yellow wellies every day.

Find out more about Farm Safety Foundation at: https://www.yellowwellies.org/farm-safety-foundation/