COL!! And right on cue, we have the shrinks to the rescue of our farmers. I've been interested to see the UN propanganda on "mental health" over the past few years. During their "mental health" weeks, i would see my local talking head on teevee, breathlessly anouncing the UN foretold "mental health" epidemic.. Thanks to the miracle of the internet, one could see the proliferation of this propaganda, from countries all over the globe.. Wish i'd saved the link, but the most outrageous one i saw was from Pakistan or Bangladesh.. Article came across as announcing that most of you people are mental cases..Sorry, i,m being flippant here.. But obviously the writer hadn't passed his course in "spin doctoring" 101..

I must say the UN has been remarkably "prescient" since they foretold the situation that has in fact developed. Son of a gun. Anxiety levels for farmers go up. Shrinks to the rescue.. UN must have a crystal ball to see the future so clearly.
Rant off!!

Farmers' stress levels set to soar

Stress and mental health problems among farmers will grow as more animals are culled, a doctor has warned.
Dr Graham Thomas, a GP in Gaerwen, Anglesey, said GPs expect an increase in new cases of depression and stress because of the foot-and-mouth epidemic.
He said the destruction of animals will leave farmers with more time on their hands to worry and brood.
Dr Thomas said farmers who in the last few weeks had been pre-occupied with fighting the disease and protecting their animals, now faced empty fields and a loss of livelihood.
He said he feared they would become introspective and depressed.
He said: "There has been a mass cull. One third of the island has just empty fields.
"The farmers' lives are quite empty now and there is nothing to generate income for them over the next six months.
"At the moment the farmers are just getting used to having no sheep on their farms. The after-effects will cause some depression.
"It will be a slow creep of cases, but we expect more than usual the number of depressed farmers."
The farmers are not the only ones to suffer because of the foot-and-mouth epidemic. Dr Thomas said slaughtermen and people involved in the tourism industry were all suffering from increased stress.
"A slaughterman off work because of stress attended the surgery and cried because his one pet sheep was to be culled.
"He rescued it as a lamb when it was born in the abattoir."
A spokeswoman for the Rural Stress Information Network said they had been inundated with calls from farmers worried about how they would cope.
'Farming may never get back to normal' She said it was important the public realised that even when the government get the foot-and-mouth outbreak under control the problems will just be beginning for many farmers.
She said: "It is going to take some time before farming is back to normal, if it ever is.
"In some areas there will be those who feel they can't continue farming, particularly in the hill areas like Cumbria and Wales."
She said farmers had been regularly ringing the helpline and saying how stressed they were.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1287000/1287744.stm

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2001

Answers

Foot and mouth was the last straw for many British farmers. BSE has been bad enough and it wasn't so long ago that farmers were protesting high taxes on gasoline, getting no sympathy from the government. Blair, reportedly, has no understanding whatever (genuine or assumed) of rural concerns and farmers have been fighting a losing battle for a very long time.

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2001