Author: Dr Jude McCann, FCN CEO
Since our founding in 1995, The Farming Community Network (FCN) has helped thousands of farmers and farming families during difficult times and periods of significant change. 2025 marks our 30th anniversary – three decades of ‘walking with’ farmers and farming families, helping people to find a positive way forward.
This is a fitting time for us to have launched our new three-year strategy (2025-2027) as we look to the future and how our support services can grow and evolve to continue to meet the changing needs of our vital farming community.
Since our founding, FCN has provided on-the-ground help and a trusted network of support for our farming community. We are privileged that farming people are comfortable opening up to us about issues they may be facing, whether personal or business-related; and working with us to help them to find solutions. This work is a core part of our charity, made possible thanks to our extensive network of volunteers who understand farming life and its unique challenges.
Increasingly in recent years, we have seen the value and impact of our proactive work helping to improve farmers’ health, wellbeing and resilience. Our FarmWell website, established in 2019, has for six years been providing farming people with a wide range of information around topics ranging from succession planning and rural crime to safety, mental health and animal disease. FarmWell now sees over 10,000 visitors a year, and has become another trusted source of information provided by FCN.
It is important that we listen to the needs of our community in order to develop our support and tailor it to individual requirements. FCN has increased our involvement in research activities that provide much-needed insights into the unique pressures and challenges our farming community can face. Coinciding with the launch of our new strategy, we published new research into the human impacts of bovine tuberculosis, which featured interviews and feedback from more than 450 farmers across the UK.
Throughout the next three years, we will be working with the University of Exeter’s Centre for Rural Policy Research on an important study into the health and wellbeing of women in our farming community. We are also taking a proactive role in championing inclusivity in the sector, such as our recent support for the Farmers Weekly ‘Level the Field’ campaign exploring neurodiversity in farming. We hope that by raising awareness of farmers’ needs, we can better support people through our work.
This preventative work to support farmers’ health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities is showcased through our UK-wide partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support. This project has seen our charities develop a range of initiatives, campaigns and resources to improve cancer support available to people in farming, rural and migrant worker communities – including raising awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer, and encouraging early detection. This work is already making a positive impact in our sector, including with ministers across the UK jurisdictions.
We know farmers often put the health of their family, friends, livestock and crops before themselves. Our work is empowering farmers to also prioritise their own health and wellbeing. Listening, Supporting and Connecting – it is thanks to our wide network of volunteers, supporters and excellent staff team that we can continue to offer this essential support to our farming community through our dedicated caseworkers and our national helpline.
As part of our new strategy, we are developing our core support services and our proactive and collaborative work, and ensuring synergies between the two. Bridging the gap between these two areas is an important part of our objectives as we look to the future, with an aspiration that greater investment in ‘FarmWell’ activity – such as projects, campaigns, community events, research and continued development of our FarmWell website – can continue to help people to avoid reaching a crisis point.
As we navigate the challenges and changes ahead, we thank everyone who gets involved in the work of The Farming Community Network. We look forward to sharing more details about our evolving strategy in the months to come.
FCN’s two core pillars of support, working side-by-side:
