Farm View: Farmers’ high mortality rate is being compounded by stress
Farmers in the 16-64 years old working age category have a cancer mortality that is three times higher than that of other workers in Ireland.
Experts say the factors associated with this heightened death level include exposure to sunlight, lifestyle factors (particularly smoking but also diet, exercise and weight), and contact with cancer-causing substances (such as chemicals, asbestos fibre, and burned oil).
Late presentation for treatment is also a major factor in excess cancer mortality among farmers.
They are advised to protect themselves against sunlight and other causes of cancer.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no protection from the stresses and strains of a business that is going from bad to worse.
They are carrying the full burden of the drought which is burning up the grass that covers 78% of the country’s farmland and provides most of the feed for the 6.7 million cattle.
Unless the drought ends early enough to allow autumn grass tillering (production of new grass shoots) to occur, pastures will thin out over the autumn, production will be poor, and weeds will invade.
With grass growth already non-existent in Co Carlow, and only one fifth of normal levels in Co Waterford and much of Leinster, it’s the most stressful year ever for Irish farmers, especially those in milk production, already traumatised by the snow that crippled rural Ireland at the start of March, and the late spring that restricted grazing well into April.
This year adds up to enough stress and strain to sicken anyone. And just when they thought it couldn’t get worse, it did, this week.
Principally due to farmers getting rid of cows they can’t afford to feed, the price for prime beef at the factories has fallen back below €4 per kg. It was inevitable that the rising supply of beef cattle would drive prices down, with market forces leaving no room for sympathy for a sector under severe pressure.
Unfortunately, it will get worse before it gets better.
The mart trade for live cattle will also inevitably fade, because fewer and fewer farmers will have any grass to feed the animals they buy, until the drought breaks.
Farmers are in the very precarious position of depending on a lot of rain falling in July and August for enough grass growth next month and into the autumn and early winter for grazing and winter fodder.
Meanwhile, the price for lambs has suffered one of the biggest weekly declines of the year because farmers without grass have stopped buying them to fatten them, and processors have taken advantage of the opportunity to slash prices for factory lambs.
Medical experts don’t mention stress, and say that exposure to sunlight, lifestyle factors and contact with cancer-causing substances are killing farmers, but the stress is certainly at dangerous levels this year.
