Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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182. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the mental health supports available for young farmers. [25605/25]

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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I would like to thank the Deputy for raising this important topic.

Farm safety, health and wellbeing is a priority for this Government. There is a specific focus in the Programme for Government on farmer mental health and wellbeing, recognising the unique challenges faced by the sector.

Through dedicated funding of €2.5 million, my Department is continuing to implement existing and new initiatives to improve farm safety, health and wellbeing.

My colleague, Michael Healy-Rae T.D., Minister of State with special responsibility for farm safety and I recently launched an open call for proposals for farm safety, health and wellbeing projects to be delivered this year. This is building on last year's open call where my Department supported 20 farm safety, health and wellbeing projects. Over half of these projects focused on farmer's mental health and wellbeing. One example is Macra’s ‘Make the Moove’ initiative where funding provided by my Department enabled Macra to further develop and expand this programme.

In collaboration with the Health Service Executive and the Department of Health, my Department is co-funding a farmers physical and mental health awareness programme called ‘On Feirm Ground 2’. This expanded programme is providing training for agricultural advisors, vets, Department staff, members of farming organisations and other agricultural professionals and service providers, to signpost farmers to supports in relation to health and wellbeing. To date, over 1,000 participants have completed this training.

I provided funding earlier this year for a joint media campaign with the HSA on raising awareness around farmer fatigue. I am supporting research into farmer mental health including the UCD-led study “Farming Minds: Developing evidence-based interventions to enhance farmer mental health”. This research aims to develop and test the feasibility and effectiveness of a scalable evidence-based psychological intervention for farmers. I have also sought proposals that focus on farmer’s safety, health and wellbeing in the 2025 Department Thematic Research Call.

My Department distributed the HSA’s Farm Safety Partnership booklet on “Farmers’ Health and Wellbeing - A Guide to Staying Healthy While Farming” in the BISS packs in 2023. The HSA’s ‘Guidance on Managing Fatigue with Farm Work’ booklet was distributed in the 2025 BISS packs.

I want to reassure the Deputy that farm safety, health and wellbeing is a priority for me and my colleague, Minister of State Michael Healy-Rae T.D. This Government will continue to invest in supporting the health and wellbeing of farmers and the rural communities in which they live.