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For Joanne Coates, a beef farmer in the Yorkshire Dales, the weather has always affected her life and business. It is now a source of dread.
“Traditionally, this was an area of short summers and long, cold winters, but that reliable pattern has gone,” she says. “Across the Dales, you can hear people remarking on there being ‘less of something’ than they would usually expect, or that certain events are happening earlier or later in the year.
“They don’t always name the climate crisis as the cause, but they can certainly see its impact and talk about it. Unpredictable weather also makes people more reluctant to leave their farms, in case they need to respond quickly to a sudden flood or other unexpected event.
“This keeps people away from community spaces, deepening isolation and loneliness. With everything going on, my partner and I can’t help but wonder what lies ahead for farming.”
Colin Chappell, an arable farmer in North Lincolnshire, has similar fears. “We’re in a business partnership with Mother Nature, but it feels like one side isn’t playing ball. That’s particularly worrying because the weather can make or break a farm. This constant uncertainty takes a real toll on mental health.
“Last year, I genuinely didn’t know how we were going to make it through as a business. I thought the farm might go under. It was incredibly tough.”
A burgeoning body of research is revealing the extent to which climate- change-driven extreme weather is affecting farmers, specifically their mental health. According to a survey by the think-tank Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), 98% have faced extreme weather events in the past five years. The most common experiences are extreme rainfall, cited by 86%, and drought, experienced by 78%, while 54% struggled with heatwaves.
During periods of extreme weather, 92% admitted to feeling anxious while 34% felt “very anxious”. Some 60% felt depressed and 6% “very depressed”. However, only 24% of farmers sought help, raising concerns that the true consequences of extreme weather are going unreported.
All this is likely to get worse. Analysis by the ECIU reveals that the UK had the hottest spring and summer on record in 2025. England saw the driest spring in more than a century. The production of wheat, oats, spring and winter barley, and oilseed rape fell by 20%. Arable farmers are estimated to have lost £828m.
Even without the vagaries of weather, farming is a tough job and one of the most dangerous industries in the UK. Although it employs just 1% of the workforce, it accounts for around 20% of all workplace deaths. On average, 31 people die on farms each year.
Other stress factors include workloads. The average working week is around 65 hours, with some farmers putting in 100 hours. Much of that time is spent alone. Then there is work/life balance. Farmers take, on average, 11 days off a year, while one in 10 do not take any breaks at all, according to a Farmers Weekly survey. One in 10 believe their daily work is limited by a health problem, long-term illness or disability, and 27% have not had a medical check-up in the past year.
The average debt per farm was £300,000 in 2023-24, according to government figures. Many farmers rely on government subsidies but paperwork and significant changes in policy cause fatigue and confusion. On small farms without hired labour, admin often falls to farmers’ wives, who are usually unpaid. This can create hidden stress.
The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution, a farmers’ charity, points to a “wellbeing gap”, with agricultural workers experiencing consistently lower levels of physical and mental health than the UK average. It has launched a five-year strategy focusing on prevention, improving access to support and delivering trusted, professional help after its survey of more than 15,000 farming people revealed the huge pressures they face (see ‘A panoply of pressures’, p17).
The figures bear out the charity’s argument. The Office for National Statistics found that 31 farmers killed themselves in England and Wales between 2023 and 2024 with a further 29 people who worked in the agricultural and fishing sector taking their own lives.
Keele University researchers are now working with farmers and healthcare professionals to improve mental health and resilience among farming and agricultural communities.
Poor mental health is one of the biggest crises affecting the farming sector, with long and physically demanding hours, living and working in remote or isolated places, and changes to government subsidies all cited as factors, says Tamsin Fisher, a research associate at Keele’s School of Medicine, who is co-leading the study.
“We know that farmers and agricultural workers are not seeking formal help, particularly from primary care, so with this study we want to understand more about what help they are seeking, what mental healthcare looks like to these communities, and how we can support them to seek more appropriate help with their mental health,” she adds.
“Almost everyone we’ve spoken to in the farming community as part of this research knows someone personally or professionally that has been affected by mental health conditions such as stress, anxiety or depression, and many know someone that has died by suicide.”
Farmers' fears from extreme weather. Several factors related to extreme weather are driving anxiety and depression among farmers, according to the ECIU. Many of them become a reality, with widespread impacts on their business:
78% worry about losing crops and livestock
68% are troubled by the costs of recovering from extreme weather
52% wonder what crops to plant because the weather is too unpredictable
43% fear they would not make enough money to continue farming during periods of extreme weather.
Graham Miles is a former livestock farmer, a qualified Church of England evangelist, unpaid lay minister and agricultural chaplain for Suffolk. He is one of a handful of diocesan farm chaplains in the country and his work involves talking to and supporting farmers.
It’s not just extreme weather putting farmers under strain. The number of calls he receives from farmers across the country has tripled since the 2024 Autumn Budget, when the government announced the family farm tax plans, an increase in employer National Insurance contributions and the acceleration of the direct payments phaseout following the UK’s departure from the EU.
“I’m getting calls every day,” Miles says. “Most of them are about the family farm tax and other aspects of the Autumn Budget. It’s a very worrying time for farmers.”
He highlights the Office for Budget Responsibility’s admission that changes to inheritance tax leave elderly farmers “horribly exposed”, with no time to manage their way through the new policy.
Miles points to the tragic case of a Welsh farmer who declined cancer treatment months before his death because of the strain placed on his family by the family farm tax.
"Something is seriously wrong when farmers are left feeling this way. Politicians need to fully appreciate the pressures being piled on farmers by some of these new policies and work with the National Farmers’ Union and the farming community to find solutions.
“My main message to farmers who are struggling is that it’s good to talk to someone and not bottle everything up. I am available to talk to 24/7, 365 days a year. As a former farmer, I speak their language and I understand the pressures and the challenges they are dealing with.
“Being outside the family unit helps as well for anyone who feels like they don’t want to burden their family with their worries. I don’t shove the Bible in people’s faces and I am happy to support people of all faiths.”
Huw Morris is a freelance journalist
