Every week, someone working in UK farming takes their own life.

There’s a tsunami of anxiety in the rural industries – a vital component of our wider Norfolk and Eastern economie – as farmers face a ‘perfect storm’ of:

• Brexit Trade uncertainty
• Threat of cheap food imports from “Free Trade”
• Extreme weather and climate change
• Bans on crop protection products
• Quango bureaucracy

That’s why I was delighted to join the latest event of Lloyds Banking Group’s “The Big Conversation” programme – which aims to bring together local voices including MPs, farming leaders and financial experts to explore the road to economic recovery in the region.

We ALL need to #BackBritishFarming if we are to help face and overcome the challenges facing this key industry and tackle the iceberg of silent mental health suffering that affects so many working within it.

To read more about the event, please view the EDP article here and here

To learn more about my previous participation in the programme (in Lloyds Banking Group’s ‘Mental Health in Agriculture’ webinar), please click here

To learn more about my work on the Agriculture Bill, Trade and Farming and Food Standards, please click here and here