Farmer health matters

A healthy workforce is vital for a productive and sustainable agricultural industry. The National Centre for Farmer Health (NCFH) has been engaging with farming communities to make health, wellbeing and safety their number one priority for more than a decade. Founding Director Susan Brumby says, ‘Through our work, we have learnt that farming families and their communities face poor health outcomes and have a higher rate of injuries, illnesses and fatalities. We have also learnt that farmers are keen to make changes when they can if they know it will help them and their farm business. In short, farmer health matters to the farmer, the family, the farm business and the industry’.

In its quest to achieve its mission of making a difference to farmers’ lives, the NCFH has provided farmer health and lifestyle assessments at field days and agricultural events to more than 1280 Victorian farming men, women, agricultural workers and their families. Young Victorian farmer Logan received a farmer health and lifestyle assessment at the Mallee Machinery Field Days in 2019. Afterwards, he said, ‘If I didn’t get a free health check from NCFH at the field day, I wouldn’t have discovered that I had type 1 diabetes at an early stage’.

With current changing aspects of life, including the cancellations of all Victorian field days, the NCFH has had to adapt its practices, while remaining focused on providing appropriate and tailored support.

Online Ag Health: whatever your device, wherever you are, we can connect

The Online Ag Health program provides farm women, men and agricultural workers with an opportunity to have a free farmer-focused telehealth consultation. Farmers already face a number of unique challenges in accessing health care. Online Ag Health provides access to a trained agrihealth professional who understands the specific challenges faced by people living and working on the land. Whatever your device, you can participate. Each participant will be assisted to identify individual health, wellbeing and safety factors and possible risks, and develop personalised goals to gain some improvements.

For more information on the Online Ag Health program or to find out how the NCFH can support
your community’s next online event, please visit  National Centre for farmer health or contact Cecilia Fitzgerald on 03 5551 8533.