Fit Farmers: Mind your physical and mental health
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Why is physical and mental health so important for farmers?
Mr. President, President, we all know how important it is to look after our physical and our mental health. It was that idea that led my next guest to set up an initiative to encourage fitness and a healthy lifestyle for farmers in her locality. Fit Farmers is a six week programme that aims to empower and educate farmers of all ages and abilities to improve their overall health and well being. Nurse and founder and facilitator of Pit farmers, Laura Laura Tully is the powerhouse behind this project. She joins me now. Morning Laura.
Good morning. Thanks
a million for joining us. Can you tell us how this all started for you?
Yeah, I suppose it started back uh seven years ago now when I took my professional life out to the community and decided to um set up a programme that would help farmers better look after themselves. I was seeing them coming into practice where I worked as a a practice nurse um often too late, maybe um thinking that if we had done an early intervention we could have prevented the health problems that they were seeing. And I suppose I was aware as well of the the lifestyle that farmers live and not having a lot of time to do that and maybe not having you know the the tools that they needed, whether that was the health literacy or having too many barriers in place of getting in to get themselves looked after.
So Um I suppose I combined my professional background and then brought it out initially to my own community in South Ruscommon and now in a lot more counties.
And has it had uh an impact? I mean people are taking up the problem. Yeah, it's
huge, David. At the start I was having to do a lot of groundwork to get farmers to do the programme.
How did Laura Tully first conceive the Fit Farmers programme?
Um the current programme here in North Tip, South Offley, was subscribed within twenty four hours. So I'm not having to do any cajoling or coaxing anymore. Farmers are telling other farmers about it and I suppose they're seeing the benefits and they're hearing about the improvements um whether it's in your physical, mental emotional or or social wellbeing and that kind of news travels fast and it's it's a positive for me and for future health of of this cohort.
So tell us about the programme. It's six weeks. What does it entail?
Yeah, look at to put it simply, I suppose um I'm working out of a local hall very close to where farmers live and work. Um it's a two hour session once a week for six weeks where we literally come in, we do your health and lifestyle assessment with my team of nurses, um and then we do workshops and workouts uh for two hours. So the first hour the farmers are um having an interactive workshop. Whether that's on a pillar of lifestyle like their movement, their sleep, um, you know, their um uh factors that would affect their health um and we're looking at nutrition and the whole spectrum. Um so breaking down the science into something that's easy to translate into practice. Um and then the second hour we're up doing our fit sticks programme, building strength, fitness, stamina, working on our balance and we're having great crack with it.
Last night we were um down in the hall with twenty five farmers we're used um breaking into a sweat, forgetting our problems for an hour um and ha we had a good sixty minute workout, uh bit of music, left all our problems there and um you know, move on after that.
And you're getting your women are are to join up uh in this Yeah, so
I I would have designed the programme originally for men and kind of was targeting the the typical sort of male farmer, you know, the like all men maybe was finding it difficult. A third of the women in the current cla a third of the current class are women. So um we've couples coming, fathers and daughters, um and we're seeing sometimes then it's the the woman the that's you know, the woman farmer that's down in tools and prioritizing our
What does the six‑week Fit Farmers curriculum actually involve?
yourself um which is really important, particularly this year as it's the International Year of Women in Agriculture.
Well, speaking of which I want to bring in a woman in agriculture, Maraid Fallon Fallon, a Westmead based fit farmer.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why is physical and mental health so important for farmers?
0:00–1:35
2
How did Laura Tully first conceive the Fit Farmers programme?
1:35–3:42
3
What does the six‑week Fit Farmers curriculum actually involve?
3:42–4:49
4
How are women farmers being included and benefiting from Fit Farmers?
4:49–6:37
5
What changes do participants notice after completing the programme?
6:37–8:00
6
In what ways does Fit Farmers support mental health and social connection?
8:00–9:26
7
How does the programme address sleep problems common on farms?
9:26–10:49
8
What are the key take‑aways and next steps for listeners interested in Fit Farmers?
10:49–10:50