This guest article has been written by Sharon May (photographed). Sharon works as a counsellor who runs a practice from her husband’s family farm in Hampshire. She is a current 2025 Nuffield Farming Scholar studying the topic “no farmer is an island – supporting the mental health of farming families” sponsored by Len’s Light and The Farming Community Network. You can find out more about her study here .
This week marks Mental Health Awareness Week, and this year’s theme – celebrating the power and importance of community – hits close to home for those of us in farming. Agriculture has long been rooted in community. It’s something we’ve always been proud of. Whether it’s calling a neighbour to help when the cattle are out, when machinery breaks or just lend a hand, that sense of connection has been part of the lifeblood of rural life.
So, if community is something farming traditionally does well, and we know it benefits mental wellbeing why are we still struggling?
One answer may lie in how rural communities have changed over the past few decades. Take our farm, for example. Over the last 40 years, there has been a significant drop in the number of people working here. Many tasks are now solitary. Local farms have grown bigger to stay competitive, and that’s meant fewer of them – and fewer farmers to share the load.
And it’s not just the farms that have changed. Our village has changed too. In roughly the same time frame, the school closed, the post office shut, the role of the church changed and the pub is barely hanging on by its fingernails. These might seem like small things, but they used to be everyday points of connection; bumping into people while walking the kids to school, chatting in the post office queue, catching up outside church, or unwinding at the local after a long day. And isolation doesn’t always mean being alone. It can also be cultural. Our village is in a commuter belt. The rise in house prices, and growth in remote working post pandemic means that many newcomers work in towns or cities. Whilst they live rurally they often have little understanding of the land and rural life. And that can make being in farming feel even more isolated – surrounded by people, but not being understood.
But here’s the good news: all is not lost.
The same technology that’s changed how we live and work also offers new ways to connect. Today, you can find people who “get it” – even if they’re not just down the road. One of my biggest sources of support is an online community of 10,000 farming women. These women understand the pressure, the lifestyle, and the unspoken challenges of agricultural life. And for those days when I need someone who just knows, they are there. I can also reach out to and chat easily to old friends who are now elsewhere in the country or on the other side of the globe, or find other groups and events that interest me easily.
Connection and community can still be about farming, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, stepping outside of it can be just as beneficial for mental health. Being surrounded by people from different walks of life can offer a shift in perspective, and a change of scene. If we approach those differences with curiosity instead of judgement, we can all learn from one another – maybe the challenge of bridging the rural-urban divide starts in our villages? Some days, you’ll need people who understand the unique stresses of farming without needing to explain a thing. Other days, you might crave a total change of topic to escape from it – those who share a different interest, sports club, or church group, etc. because while you might be a farmer, you’re also many other things too.
So this Mental Health Awareness Week, take time to think about what you need from a community, what you can offer to a community, and go find your tribes (it is absolutely fine to have more than one) and build connection. Community isn’t something that just happens. It takes effort. It takes showing up, reaching out, and sometimes stepping out of your comfort zone. But what you put in, you’ll get back – and then some. And strengthening those connections doesn’t just benefit you. When community thrives, everyone does.