Penrith mental health nurse hopes to shine light on issues facing agriculture

Lucia, a mental health nurse working in rural Cumbria, is hoping to highlight the issues and challenges facing the agricultural industry.

It comes as she's accepted into the Nuffield Farming Scholarship. Nuffield Trust is a charity organisation whose aim is to bring positive change to agriculture through the development of its future leaders, sending them overseas to learn from others and helping them share their ideas when they return home.

Lucia is hoping her background in mental health nursing will allow her a unique perspective on the challenges faced by those in agriculture.

Living and working in the community gives her first hand experience on how isolation, financial uncertainty, and the demanding nature of farming can affect mental well-being.

She'll now travel to the likes of Australia and New Zealand to see how they are tackling the issue.

She said: "I hope that by going to these countries I can see what other challenges and stresses there are and bring back some incites and creative ways of working in this country. I'm also going to try and look at what the rural support agencies that exist are in this country already.

"There isn't a lot of time in farming, and there isn't a lot of time for wellness and self-care.

"It's just not a priority for some people, and when it becomes a priority it's sometimes too late.

"If people felt more comfortable with their friends, or people that they are down at the auctions with, those or the sort of key situations that can help.

"What i've found so far is that a lot of support agencies for agriculture do not actually say the word suicide on their media. I just think why?

"It's such a big problem. Why are we not trying to address the problem that is there, and remove the stigma that is there?"