The connected issues of farm safety and mental health and were highlighted during a charity walk which brought together members of the agricultural community.

Norfolk farming leader Jamie Lockhart and farm safety consultant Elizabeth Creed were the latest industry figures to join the YANA (You Are Not Alone) charity team for a six-mile leg of its Walking4Norfolk Challenge.

The Norfolk-based farming mental health charity is raising awareness of its work during the challenge, which sees teams walking the 375-mile equivalent distance between Norwich and Paris.

Mr Lockhart, chairman of the Norfolk branch of the National Farmers' Union, said mental health and farm safety were two major issues for the sector, and both needed more open conversations.

"From my point of view it is about the importance of having those discussions about mental health, and we all need to understand that we are all vulnerable at various points," he said. "This sort of thing normalises those conversations and means we can catch a problem before it goes too far.

"The Health and Safety side speaks for itself with the shocking statistics of people being killed in the industry, so the NFU is doing everything it can to promote both mental health and safety on farms."

That point was echoed by Elizabeth Creed, an independent safety consultant who also works with the Farm Safety Partnership and runs the weekly @FarmSafetyHour on Twitter on Thursday evenings.

She said: "Sometimes farm safety can feel like a challenge and, if you are not in a good place in your head, mental health can impact on your decision-making - which then has a knock-on effect on farm safety.

"If you look at the statistics from the start of the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) year in April, one person a week has been killed this year, and generally they are things that could either have been prevented or the outcome could have been prevented if basic safety procedures were being followed. So we need to tap into the decision-making process.

"There is a willingness to change and our polls show that understanding legislation and time are the biggest barriers to getting safety right. We need to make the guidance more simple so it is more black and white."

  • YANA offers confidential mental health support and counselling for those in farming and rural industries in Norfolk and Suffolk. Contact the helpline on 0300 323 0400 or visit www.yanahelp.org.
  • For more advice on farm safety, see www.yellowwellies.org.