Your listening ear can save a life

When it comes to suicide, there is no price on making a difference in people’s lives. The question of how to do that is the focus of Agri Connect, the seminar for rural professionals being rolled out across New Zealand.

The mental health and wellbeing seminar aims to give frontline agents – the rural professionals with whom farmers regularly speak – the tools to provide help.

Under the “lean on a gate” umbrella Whatever the Wiggy Charitable Trust is, Agri Connect is focused on communities connecting to save lives.

Craig (Wiggy) Wiggins said he has always believed that connecting with friends and community is the key to getting help with mental health.

Wiggy’s message aims to rebuild community spirit and generate a nationwide connection between rural sectors.

In September 2021, after losing two friends to suicide, he decided to spread his message “that we should all take five minutes to look at each other, just as we are used to at sales yards and other community events.”

“It’s a clear message aimed at encouraging people to stay connected and raise awareness about mental health.

“Communities are resourceful, as we see all the time. It’s about connection, we have lost the art of connecting.

“We know that a short conversation can often make a big difference.”

The campaign has a light-hearted appearance, but the slogan has a serious undertone.

Speaking at the Agri Connect seminar in Ashburton, suicide prevention officer Pup Chamberlain urged rural professionals to have the conversation about mental health with the farmers they interact with.

“Many farmers walk around with a ticking time bomb, but they don’t realize it.

“Farmers sleep in their workplace, they work at a high level of intensity all the time, they always have that reminder going 24 hours a day, that’s why it’s so important to get off the farm and take a break mentally and physically .

“People are herd animals, we need each other; we need our tribe for care.

“If I come in limping, you’ll ask what’s the matter; when someone doesn’t seem like their usual self, you’re too afraid to ask: How hard is it to say, “I see you’re in pain”?

“We know from research that 50% of our population thinks about suicide at some point in their lives, so if someone is in trouble there is a 50% to 50% chance that they are thinking about dying.

“In the past two weeks I have been to three doctors with young guys because someone had made a referral.

“Please have the conversation about mental health, have time to listen, listen and listen again.”

The lack of succession planning was highlighted as one of the worst mental health problems, with 30% of farmer calls resulting from succession planning that did not take place or was poorly planned and “fallen down”.

Forsyth Barr adviser Mark Grenside said succession is a bomb waiting to go off in most families.

“Many farming families will need a lot of support.

“Our duty of care in terms of professionalism is to do our job very well and give people the confidence they need to speak out,” Grenside said.

Mental health advocate and former Māori All Black Slade McFarland has been on the mental wellness journey since finding himself in the “pile of players who have been there, come and gone” after retiring from rugby.

“I have had a therapist for fifteen years. I call her my incinerator; I bring her my garbage bag full and she empties it every week.

“I know that farmers tend to isolate themselves. Problems will only be heard if we are brave enough to share the courage within ourselves, because we are men.”

Do you suffer from depression or stress, or do you know someone who does? Where to get help:

Rural Support Trust: 0800 RURAL AID

Depression Helpline: 0800 111 757

Lifeline: 0800 543 354

Need to talk? Call or text 1737

Samaritans: 0800 726 666

Youth line: 0800 376 633 or text 234