“Watching the bank balance build up then blow away and the rain clouds do the same”: A thematic analysis of South Australian farmers’ sources of stress during drought

Fennell, Kate M.; Jarrett, Claire E.; Kettler, Lisa; Dollman, James; Turnbull, Deborah

doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2016.05.005

Cited by 49 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Also, an increase in farm debt of AUD $1,000,000 increases the likelihood of being in the high level of psychological distress by 5 percentage points and the very high level of distress by 3 percentage points. Our results are consistent with other studies, which found financial problems as the most common issue associated with farming stress [1,5,48].…”

Section: Financial Capitalsupporting

confidence: 93%

Exploring the Drivers of Irrigator Mental Health in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia

Yazd¹,

Wheeler²,

Zuo³

2019

Sustainability

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There has been little work conducted on how landholders’ farm management approaches and financial capital (specifically (i) farm method such as organic farming and (ii) financial profitability) may impact mental health. In particular, there is emerging evidence that an increase in natural farm capital and environmental conditions may improve farmers’ wellbeing. We used a 2015–2016 survey, which randomly sampled 1000 irrigators from the southern Murray–Darling Basin, to model the drivers of irrigators’ psychological distress. Results highlight that worsening financial capital (namely, lower farmland value, higher farm debt, lower percentage of off-farm income, lower productivity change over the past five years, and lower net farm income) was the most statistically significant factor associated with increased irrigator distress. In addition, there was some evidence that being a certified organic irrigator was also associated with lower psychological distress; however, it was only weakly significant in our overall model, with the most significance within the horticultural industry model. Contrary to expectations, drought and water scarcity were not the main drivers of psychological distress in the time-period studied, with their influence seemingly through reducing financial capital as a whole.

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Section: Financial Capitalsupporting

confidence: 93%

Exploring the Drivers of Irrigator Mental Health in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia

Yazd¹,

Wheeler²,

Zuo³

2019

Sustainability

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“…Farmers are ageing, and facing increasing technological and mechanical demands, in a fluctuating global marketplace with mounting climate uncertainty [6][7][8]. Given that the majority of Australian farms remain family owned and operated [9], this occupational vulnerability is likely to extend beyond those defined as farmers to include family members living and helping out on farms.Australia's farmers have been identified as at risk of psychological distress [10,11] and heightened rates of suicide [12][13][14][15], in the absence of any clear evidence of higher rates of diagnosed mental illness [16]. Poor mental health and suicide risk in farming have been attributed to a complex range of interconnected cultural, environmental, geographical, social and psychological risk factors [11,[17][18][19][20].…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Australia's farmers have been identified as at risk of psychological distress [10,11] and heightened rates of suicide [12][13][14][15], in the absence of any clear evidence of higher rates of diagnosed mental illness [16]. Poor mental health and suicide risk in farming have been attributed to a complex range of interconnected cultural, environmental, geographical, social and psychological risk factors [11,[17][18][19][20].…”

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confidence: 99%

Suicide in Rural Australia: Are Farming-Related Suicides Different?

Kennedy

Adams

Dwyer

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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Rural Australians experience a range of health inequities-including higher rates of suicide-when compared to the general population. This retrospective cohort study compares demographic characteristics and suicide death circumstances of farming-and non-farming-related suicides in rural Victoria with the aim of: (a) exploring the contributing factors to farming-related suicide in Australia's largest agricultural producing state; and (b) examining whether farming-related suicides differ from suicide in rural communities. Farming-related suicide deaths were more likely to: (a) be employed at the time of death (52.6% vs. 37.7%, OR = 1.84, 95% CIs 1.28-2.64); and, (b) have died through use of a firearm (30.1% vs. 8.7%, OR = 4.51, 95% CIs 2.97-6.92). However, farming-related suicides were less likely to (a) have a diagnosed mental illness (36.1% vs. 46.1%, OR=0.66, 95% CIs 0.46-0.96) and, (b) have received mental health support more than six weeks prior to death (39.8% vs. 50.0%, OR = 0.66, 95% CIs 0.46-0.95). A range of suicide prevention strategies need adopting across all segments of the rural population irrespective of farming status. However, data from farming-related suicides highlight the need for targeted firearm-related suicide prevention measures and appropriate, tailored and accessible support services to support health, well-being and safety for members of farming communities.The factors contributing to health inequities-including suicide risk and accidental death-are likely to reflect this heterogeneity and require detailed exploration to support any specific prevention and intervention strategies.Farmers are vital for maintaining the production of food and fibre in an environment of ever-increasing populations and market demand. In Australia-as in many other Western nations-agricultural production is increasingly recognised as a vulnerable industry. Farmers are ageing, and facing increasing technological and mechanical demands, in a fluctuating global marketplace with mounting climate uncertainty [6][7][8]. Given that the majority of Australian farms remain family owned and operated [9], this occupational vulnerability is likely to extend beyond those defined as farmers to include family members living and helping out on farms.Australia's farmers have been identified as at risk of psychological distress [10,11] and heightened rates of suicide [12][13][14][15], in the absence of any clear evidence of higher rates of diagnosed mental illness [16]. Poor mental health and suicide risk in farming have been attributed to a complex range of interconnected cultural, environmental, geographical, social and psychological risk factors [11,[17][18][19][20]. These factors include poor access to support services [21,22], an unsustainable work ethic [23], uncertainty and lack of control in farming [23], social disconnection [17,19], poor business profitability [24], acclimatisation to risk taking [25] and access to means [14]. Qualitative research suggests there may be two distinct pathways to suicide for Australia's fa...

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“…This work is related to studies of climate change and impacts in the South Saskatchewan River Basin (SSRB; Sauchyn et al, ) which included interactions (via interviews and presentations) with stakeholders, such as ranchers and farmers whose livelihoods depend on water availability in the SSRB watershed, as well as more rigorous scientific approaches, including hydrological modelling. This and other studies (e.g., Fennell et al, ; Jacques et al, ; Pittman et al, ) have identified uncertainty in future climate as being one of the dominant stressors for farming/ranching communities and, thus, any further information we can provide on future uncertainty is of value to these communities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 63%

Uncertainty in climate projections and time of emergence of climate signals in the western Canadian Prairies

Barrow

Sauchyn

2019

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Funding information Climate Research Branch of Environment and Climate Change CanadaThis paper has examined the relative significance of uncertainty in future climate projections from a subset of the coupled model intercomparison project phase 5 (CMIP5) global climate models for the Prairie Provinces of western Canada. This was undertaken by determining: (a) the contribution of model and scenario uncertainty and natural variability to the total variance of these future projections, and (b) the timing of climate signal emergence from the background noise of natural climate variability. We examined future projections of mean temperature, precipitation and summer climate moisture index (CMI). In this region, natural climate variability plays an important role in future uncertainty until the end of this century, particularly for precipitation and to a lesser extent, summer CMI. Model uncertainty also contributes to total uncertainty for these variables throughout this century, while scenario uncertainty becomes more important towards the end of the century. For the region as a whole, significant climate change (i.e., signal/noise >2) occurs earliest for summer mean temperature, with median time of emergence around 2035 for the RCP8.5 radiative forcing scenario. Although the median precipitation signal emerges from the noise (i.e., signal/noise >1) around the 2070s in winter and the 2080s in spring, significant values do not occur in any season for this variable before 2100. For summer CMI, the median time of emergence for significant change is around 2085. At the grid scale, signal-to-noise ratios are significant for all seasons for mean surface air temperature, with earliest times of emergence occurring in summer. In contrast, the summer precipitation signal is not significant this century; for summer CMI, significant values are obtained in the eastern half of the region, occurring from about 2065 onwards. Median times of emergence are towards the end of the century for summer CMI in western Saskatchewan and in Alberta, although some areas of Alberta do not exhibit significant signals this century. K E Y W O R D S CMIP5, natural variability, time of emergence, uncertainty, variance partitioning 1 | INTRODUCTIONNumerical climate models are "the primary tools available for investigating the response of the climate system to various forcings, for making climate predictions on seasonal to decadal time scales and for making projections of future climate over the coming century and beyond" (Flato et al., 2013). Applied properly, the climate change scenarios derived from these models are the most rigorous scientific basis for climate change impact assessment and the proactive

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“Watching the bank balance build up then blow away and the rain clouds do the same”: A thematic analysis of South Australian farmers’ sources of stress during drought

Cited by 49 publications

References 32 publications

Exploring the Drivers of Irrigator Mental Health in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia

Exploring the Drivers of Irrigator Mental Health in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia

Suicide in Rural Australia: Are Farming-Related Suicides Different?

Uncertainty in climate projections and time of emergence of climate signals in the western Canadian Prairies

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