Dairy Talk - Gemma Smale-Rowland: "This summer has seen some huge efforts by people to bring mental health awareness to the fore"

The British summer never fails to disappoint and when the schools break up, we can always guarantee the British summer makes sure everything is a washout.

The accuracy of the Met Office forecast this year makes me wonder if we're just playing a game of the Wheel of Fortune, with the wheel spun on a daily basis and just delivering whatever it likes for that given day.

It seems that's about as reliable as it gets when it comes to the Met Office and every day we seem to wake up to a new challenge.

With small windows of opportunity, we have managed to get all the harvest in.

Harvest

Maize is pending, but nearly there and hopefully by the time you read this it will be safely in the pit.

We've been lucky that we've managed to get good grass growth this year to keep in front of the cows, along with filling the clamps.

However, the rain has affected grass quality and we are already buffer feeding with first cut to try and keep yield and quality high.

As we all face different challenges throughout the farming calendar we all handle them differently and have a range of mechanisms of coping.

Instagram

Something I found really interesting this summer was an Instagram account run by Andrea McDowell also known as @dahliabeach. She is a lady who ran a hugely successful wedding company in London which unfortunately ended up closing in 2020 due to Covid-19.

She is now living in the Cotswolds and has decided to follow her dream to become a flower farmer.

In her first year in business in 2022 she had hugely successful time with a massive field of dahlias, and she ran a pick-your-own enterprise. It all sounded wonderful, and many following her might have thought ‘how difficult can farming be?'

But as all of us farmers know year to year things tend to differ, and this year has not been quite so good for her, with the wet spring and then the lack of sunshine all making for challenging growing conditions.

Challenges

I found it interesting from a farmer's point of view how she documented all the highs and all the lows of what her year had to brought, and there have been many, I tell you.

The thing that really made me think was this was someone that had come from the outside into farming and had really struggled this year with the challenges that we face day-in day-out, year-in year-out.

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She has been brutally honest about the effect this has had on her mental health. This will have brought some insight for her 81.4k followers of what us as farmers producing products for this country have to go through, and how resilient farmers can be.

This summer has seen some huge efforts by people to bring mental health awareness and suicide prevention to the fore.

We had Olly Harrison driving in the combine challenge, which helped raise awareness and funds for Mind mental health charity and Children with Cancer UK.

There was also the Len's Light tractor relay, which again shone a light on mental health and suicide in the rural community.

These were amazing efforts and really help bring awareness to the public and to open the eyes of the rural community.

Autumn

So as the vibrant green trees now turn to rusty orange, the fields start to fill with pumpkins and the country lanes are scattered with pheasant pullets, we can see the seasons are clearly changing.

This seems like a good time to reflect on the past year, and how things have gone. But as we head into the long autumn months ahead we must also remember to look out for each other.

Let's hope for a dry autumn, which helps life some pressure by ensuring we can finish the harvest and keep stock out for longer.