Resilience was a key message in a mental health and wellbeing presentation at a gathering held at the Quercus Neighbourhood Centre last month.

Warren Davies known as the ‘unbreakable farmer’ - one of Australia’s leading rural mental health speakers – shared his life’s journey from growing up in Melbourne to his challenging time as a dairy farmer.

Among topics covered, Mr Davies spoke about facing natural disasters such as floods, droughts, financial and family pressures on the farm with impacts on his own mental health and wellbeing.

The unbreakable farmer shared some tools and strategies for people to place into their toolbox in navigating similar journeys.

“It’s important to build capacity in your toolbox so you can tap into your resilience,” Mr Davies said.

Mr Davies has travelled around Australia for the last eight years giving his talks.

“I'm a dairy farmer by trade and was managing dairy farms when I first started speaking about 11 years ago,“ he said.

Mr Davies said a big increase had taken place with people impacted by multiple circumstances.

“It’s good that they are now talking about mental health and well-being, “he said.

“I think there's always going to be a need while there is ongoing uncertainty in the world.

“It’s important that we reach out and talk and we need to destigmatise mental health issues and support each other.”

Mr Davies said outreach work is also undertaken where chats around kitchen tables take place with people isolated on farms.

“Instead of expecting them to come to me, I go to them to make sure they are getting the support needed,” he said.

Wodonga-based AgBiz Assist’s executive officer Nerida Kerr said in raising mental health awareness for farmers, people could relate to Mr Davies‘ real life stories.

AgBiz offers rural financial counselling service and small business support services supported by the Australian and Victorian governments.

“Every story you hear, you're reminded of the importance of looking after mental health and for the message to get out to more people,” Ms Kerr said.

“Warren’s story could be the trigger for people to recognise and seek help needed.

“We are finding with the rural, small business financial and wellbeing counselling, people are traumatized by many impacts,” she said.

“Looking back to the millennium drought, there were 10 years of drought, followed by floods, the dairy crisis, and drought again.

“We had the Black Saturday bushfires, then went straight into COVID."

Ms Kerr said more years of successive floods and droughts followed and now people are living in an uncertain world.

“It's compounding trauma and situational distress, and there's been little or no time to recover in the meantime.”

Beechworth farmer for the last four years, Nina Greenaway, said she found the presentation fantastic and valuable with useful tips.