Our livestock markets have been at the heart of the rural community for generations, not only playing an integral part in the red meat supply chain, but also through providing a myriad of alternative services and support for you, and our local farming communities. 

A key benefit that all of our livestock markets create, during every market day, is the greatly valued “social hub”, where farmers and friends meet and socialise, whilst conducting their business. 

Increasingly so, this meeting place has taken on even greater significance, as we recognise the growing industry crisis around mental health issues and suicide. As such, our market staff play an important role in engaging with and supporting our farming communities.

We all know that mental health issues among livestock farmers are a common, recognised occurrence across the country. There are many organisations available regionally and nationally to support rural communities to deal with such issues, and the mart provides the ‘place and space’ to facilitate this support.

The Royal Countryside Fund commissioned report “More than a Mart”, carried out by the University of Exeter and published in 2021, highlights how livestock marts tackle social isolation and improve the health and wellbeing of people like you, our mart users.

The report estimates that between 5% and 20% of mart visitors come for social reasons alone, and therefore marts have a huge offering to tackle social isolation and mental health issues. 

This may be from our rural chaplains based at marts, to our market staff and managers who are seen as a trusted source of knowledge, or to farmer networks attending sales days.

In recent years we have driven new initiatives that have been adopted up and down the country, such as the growing number of rural health hubs hosted at market locations, providing drop-in clinics and free access to confidential health checks and advice.

We know that these services have been warmly welcomed, by the numbers making use of the health hubs alone, as well of course as the feedback we have received. Equally, we know that for many of those people calling into the drop-in centres, they would not, or would very unlikely, have otherwise gone to the doctors surgery to seek advice or treatment.

While farmers and farm workers often put the health and welfare of their livestock above that of their own well-being, these health hubs are providing an important gateway for the farming community. While often this may be more focused on physical complaints, it does also lend itself to providing access to professional support around mental health concerns.

One of the key pull-outs we had noted during this year’s ‘Yellow Wellies’ Farm Safety Week campaign, was the stark reality that while attitudes and behaviours around farm safety and mental health are changing, the pace of change is slow.

That is why we used Farm Safety Week to launch the latest update to our health and safety training programme for market staff, MartSafe 3.0. Now in its third year, we have been working closely with the mental health farming charity, the DPJ Foundation, to introduce a key new element focusing on mental health and suicide awareness.

This new training module has been designed to support our mart staff to recognise and address the signs of poor mental health or suicide, and provide signposts to further professional support.

As Kate Miles, charity manager of DPJ Foundation told us, the mart provides a chance to connect, share concerns and update on the industry. Market staff play a vital role as familiar and trusted faces and are really well placed to notice if someone is not themselves.

That is why Kate and DPJ Foundation jumped at the chance to work with us, helping to build confidence amongst our market staff and to reach out to more people within the industry.

If you, or family and friends are concerned about any of the issues above, your livestock market can be a crucial touchpoint for confidential advice and guidance, or signposting to further support.

Going back to our opening sentence, livestock markets have been at the heart of the rural community for generations, both as an important marketing platform, but as a key social hub. Now more than ever, we are focused on bringing people, auction markets and prices together in one live hub.