FARMRes - Farmers Assistance Resources for Mental Resilience

Although there is a lack of information among EU countries, it seems that 17% of the European population suffered some kind of mental health problem in 2016. Among disorders, the most common was anxiety (5.4% of the population), depression (4.5%), addictions (2.4%). 84,000 people in extreme cases suffered premature death due to suicides linked to mental health problems (“Health at a glance: Europe” - OECD, 2018). The situation has been even worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.Farmers specifically suffer from situations and are influenced by factors that can generate stress or anxiety, mainly linked to the strong financial uncertainties of their activity, their social position, as well as difficulties in managing their family relationships within the professional sphere. Farmers are five times more likely to abuse substances (Bush and Lipari, 2015) or commit suicide (McIntosh et al, 2016) than the rest of the population.The FARMRes project aims to raise farmers' awareness of mental health issues and to guide them in shaping their daily lives, as well as their business and personal environment. It is about awareness raising and prevention, as well as detection and first aid involving farmers, their families and farmers’ consultants.FARMRes specific objectives are:- Recognise the importance of mental health for successful farming and for farmers wellbeing;- Provide to farmers, their families and farmers’ consultants/associations with the tools needed to prevent, detect and aid in case of potential or ongoing mental health issues;- Foster sustainable economic and social development of farming and rural areas.To achieve these objectives we will develop a training and awareness raising web-based app that will include, amongst other elements:- Farmers success stories in preventing and overcoming mental health problems related to stress at work. - Farmers mental health and well-being training toolkit made of prevention, detection and first aid tools.