12 October 2021

It's Ag Mental Health Week 2021

Mental Health Week began on Sunday, Oct 10 and runs until Saturday, Oct 16. During this week Teagasc Daily will bring you series of short articles from John McNamara, Teagasc Health & Safety Specialist, reminding farmers and all working in agriculture of the importance of mental health awareness

Research on Farmer Health Signposting

Teagasc Walsh Scholar, Conor Hammersley is researching means that Irish FAS Advisors can sign post farmers to better Health and Mental Health. Conor is attached to the National Centre for Men’s Health at Institute of Technology Carlow.

Conor’s research is based on evaluating the On Feirm Ground Project which is aimed at improving mental and physical health amongst farmers and which is jointly funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Department of Health.

Conor spoke with Damien O'Reilly on the Radio 1 Countrywide programme last Saturday morning (9th October) to discuss mental health amongst the farming community.

Hear Conor describe early findings of his research at: Researching Rural Mental Health

As part of Ag mental health week Conor Hammersley Teagasc PhD Walsh scholar also joined Catherine Egan on this week’s Beef Edge podcast to discuss the findings of his study as part of the ‘On Feirm Ground’ project.

Listen to the BeefEdge podcast below

L-R: Frank Feighan T.D., Minister of State for Public Health, Well Being and the National Drugs Strategy, Sean Cooke, CEO Men’s Development Network, Martin Heydon T.D., Minister of State for Research & Development, Farm Safety and New Market Development. Image credit: Ryan Byrne, Inpho.

'ON FEIRM GROUND’ PROGRAMME LAUNCHED TO SUPPORT FARMER HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Check out the hashtags #AgMentalHealthWeek and #itsgoodtotalk and the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Agmentalhealthweek/ for events taking place this week.