2014-09-23 Run to promote farmer health – Country News

It might sound like folly, but Victorians of all fitness levels are running up to 42km to raise awareness of farmers’ health.

Farmers, rural community members and supporters including politicians are running in the ‘Run 4 Farmer Health’ team in the Melbourne Marathon next month.

Echuca’s Jennifer MacLean, Wendy Nolan and Deb Whitten (who are all aged over 50) are ready and set to go in the 10km race, while Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie is training for the 21km half-marathon event.

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2014-09-23 Run to promote farmers health – Country News

2014-10-03 Run 4 Farmer Health in aid of farmer health – Southern Weekly

Victorians have been urged to take part in the Run 4 Farmer Health in Melbourne on October 12.

The run aims to raise $20,000 for the National Centre for Farmer Health.

The centre educates and promotes health, safety and wellbeing for farmers.

There are currently 73 runners signed up to compete in the runs which vary in length from the 43 kilometre full marathon, 21 kilometre half marathon, 10 kilometre, five and three kilometre events.

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie, along with her colleagues, took part in a training run  in Melbourne’s Treasury Gardens recently.

“The National Centre for Farmer Health and VFF are organising this fabulous event and we should support them in ensuring it’s a great success. There are even training tips on the Centre’s website if you need some motivation,” Ms McKenzie said.

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2014-10-03 Run 4 Farmer Health in aid of farmer health – Southern Weekly

2014-10-03 Nevill paced by children, dog for Melbourne Marathon challenge – The Standard

TANIA Nevill pounds the pavement around Mepunga East in the early hours of the morning when many are still tucked up in bed.

The avid runner, preparing for her first marathon, admits her family thinks she’s “a bit mad”.

Nevill runs on the roads — her family’s 190-hectare dairy farm is “very muddy and there’s too many holes you’d do an ankle” — taking different routes to mix up the routine.

“I think I like it because I can do it when it suits me,” she said.

“I like the freedom of getting out and running at my own pace.”

The mother of four will swap the flat Western District roads around her property for a city challenge on Sunday week — the Melbourne Marathon.

Nevill is committed to tackling Victoria’s most renowned long-distance running race.

She’s completed the event’s half-marathon and knows what to expect when she battles the 42.2-kilometre distance on October 12.

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2014-10-03 Nevill paced by children, dog for Melbourne Marathon challenge – The Standard

2014-10-02 Senator McKENZIE (Victoria) – Senate Hansard (Parliament of Australia)

Senator McKENZIE (Victoria) (18:45): Earlier this week my Nationals colleague the Minister for Agriculture paid tribute to Australian family farms and their contribution to our country and economy.

2014 is the International Year of Family Farming. Tonight I would like to contribute to this important topic, taking the opportunity to promote the National Centre for Farmer Health. The International Year of Family Farming aims to raise the profile of family farming by focusing world attention on its significant role in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment and achieving sustainable development in rural areas.

Here in Australia there are an estimated 135,692 farm businesses and 99 per cent of those are family owned and operated. Our farmers are impressive. Each Australian farmer produces enough food to feed 600 people per year, 150 here at home and 450 overseas. They produce almost 93 per cent of Australia’s daily domestic food supply and they export around 60 per cent of what they grow and produce. Those exports earned our nation $38 billion in 2012-13, while wider agricultural, fisheries and forestry sectors generated $41 billion in exports. The gross value of Australian farm production in 2012-13 was $47 billion, about 12 per cent of our GDP.

About 278 people are employed in Australian agriculture and there are over 1.6 million jobs in the agricultural supply chain and affiliated industries. This is why the health and wellbeing of both our farmers and the National Centre for Farmer Health are so important.

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2014-10-02 Senator McKENZIE (Victoria) – Senate Hansard (Parliament of Australia)

2014-09-23 Scholarships Now Open!

Urgent prescription needed for farming, and farm family health

Scholarships Now Open!

The health and safety of the Australian farming industry is one of the poorest in the nation and more needs to be done about it according to Hamilton based National Centre for Farmer Health Director Dr. Sue Brumby.

“In 2010-11 Agriculture had the highest number of industry worker fatalities, this is not an aberration, over the previous decade the industry had been the second highest”.

“But farming’s most serious diseases are more insidious, more ingrained – and frighteningly – more traditional. For too long too many farmers have not even acknowledged illness, let alone allow it to slow the hectic work schedule now demanded by 21st century farming” she said.

Dr. Brumby said “The impact of that attitude is phenomenal – not only is the farmer at risk, so is his, or her, family and the security of the very business on which too many are working themselves to death”.

“Yet health has to be the cornerstone of it all, and as such needs so much more attention, acknowledgement – and respect – than it currently receives”.

“We have a sobering record of farmers who did not think they needed to take care of their health, not enough of them understood what was happening when their health failed. This is why we developed Agricultural Health and Medicine (HMF701), which will be run through Deakin University School of Medicine and Western District Health Service in 2015 from 23rd to 27th February” Dr. Brumby said.

Scholarships worth $1500 are now available to prospective students, who come from a diverse range of backgrounds, all working within the agricultural and health care industries.

The course has already attracted doctors, nurses, veterinarians, counsellors, agriculturalists and public health specialists from all states, some of them travelling thousands of kilometres to participate.

“They will work with an outstanding lineup of medical and industry presenters who will provide an insight of the challenges facing farmers, their families, their staff and their industry” Dr. Brumby explains.

That line-up includes surgeon Mr. Stephen Clifforth, respiratory physician Dr. Andrew Bradbeer, emergency medicine specialist Associate Professor Tim Baker, clinical psychologist Jan Austin and drug and alcohol addiction specialist Dr. Rodger Brough.

Dr. Brumby said “These specialist presenters, and the rest of the program – which also includes veterinary and farm safety experts – have been selected to deliver a concise and comprehensive introduction to the areas of farming health which need to be better understood, and clearly better managed”.

“We would encourage everyone involved in the industry – from agriculturalists to health service providers – to invest just five days in their future. It will be time well spent” she said.

Rural GP, Dr. Christel Smit Kroner said “the course helped me gain a deeper understanding of the work and life style factors impacting on my patient population. I feel more confident to open up conversations with farmers about their daily work, stresses, worries and joys”.

The NCFH Scholarships are now open and close 19^th October 2014, visit www.farmerhealth.org.au or call Dr. Jacquie Cotton 03 5551 8585 for more information.

Enquiries:

Dr. Jacquie Cotton
National Centre for Farmer Health
Western District Health Service
03 55518585

2014-09-18 Farmers need to be sun smart – Hamilton Spectator

HAMILTON’S National Centre for Farmer Health has started a research program to help prevent deaths and major medical issues caused by skin cancers in the agricultural workforce.
Ochre Health GP, Dr Christel Smit-Kroner, aims to stop many farmers from “learning the hard way” about being sun smart through painful and sometimes fatal melanomas.

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2014-09-18 Farmers need to be sun smart – Hamilton Spectator

2014-09-18 Farmers need to be sun smart – Hamilton Spectator – PDF

Photo source: Hamilton Spectator

2014-09-17 Funding talks planned for National Centre for Farmer Health – ABC News

The Victorian Government says it is planning discussions with the Commonwealth about funding for the National Centre for Farmer Health.

In July, the state and federal governments gave the Hamilton-based centre a one-off $625,000 grant, after being overlooked in the governments’ budgets.

The centre has been told to look for ongoing funding from the private sector. …

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-16/funding-talks-planned-for-national-centre-for/5746156

2014-09-17 Vics urge Feds to help farmer health – Stock and Land

FEDERAL money will be required if the State Government is to continue funding Hamilton’s National Centre for Farmer Health, according to Member for Western Victoria, Simon Ramsay.

The State Government was committed to providing a quarter of a million dollars to help run the centre annually, but it was contingent on Federal funding, Mr Ramsay said.

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2014-09-17 Vics urge Feds to help farmer health – Stock and Land

Seeking farming family members bereaved by suicide

Seeking Farming Families

Andrew Mole is an award-winning rural and regional journalist who has been working in agricultural and regional Australia for almost 30 years.

Currently based in Echuca he is  looking to interview a farming family who have been bereaved by the suicide of a parent or partner.

The purpose of the story is to highlight the following:

1.       The  repercussions of suicide, not just on the immediate family but through an extended family and community.

2.       To run parallel stories which demonstrate how families may  identify distress even though the person suffering the problem might be trying hard to hide it, or not even be aware of it.

3.       Draw on work from the medical world,  and groups such as Suicide Prevention Australia, Lifeline and beyond blue.

Andrew says while there has been a lot of awareness  of suicide as an issue in agricultural Australia, there has been too little coverage of the  impact on the family left behind.

It is his intention to try and give this experience a truly personal face, providing an awareness and momentum that goes  beyond the act of suicide to highlight the full extent of the  tragedy.

While he is prepared to offer anonymity Andrew believes this may weaken the strength of the story and would prefer to work with someone who is prepared to be named, and tell their full story.

Ideally he is looking for someone in the Riverina area but is prepared to interview anyone in Victoria or southern NSW.

The person interviewed will receive a full copy of the story and have the final say on its content.

Andrew can  be contacted on 0419 132 369.

2014-09-16 Windy conditions for training run – Hamilton Spectator

Local runners and walkers braced windy conditions on September 8 to hear training tips, meet each other and practice for the upcoming Run 4 Farmer Health.

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2014-09-16 Windy conditions for training run – Hamilton Spectator

2014-09-16 Funding talks planned for National Centre for Farmer Health – ABC News

The Victorian Government says it is planning discussions with the Commonwealth about funding for the National Centre for Farmer Health.

In July, the state and federal governments gave the Hamilton-based centre a one-off $625,000 grant, after being overlooked in the governments’ budgets.

The centre has been told to look for ongoing funding from the private sector.

…

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2014-09-16 Funding talks planned for National Centre for Farmer Health – ABC News

2014-09-12 Mepunga farmer Tania Nevill to run for farmer health in Melbourne Marathon – Weekly Times

The Mepunga East resident has responded to her 5am alarm clock nearly every day since February, averaging up to 60km a week in preparation for her first marathon.

But the mother of four says her gruelling regimen has been a walk in the park compared to the challenges farmers face.

“It’s easy to make the effort to get up out of bed when you have a goal in my mind,” Ms Nevill said.

“While my training can be hard, there are farmers in Victoria who are enduring great physical and mental hardships.

“But farmers are a resilient lot who can push through that pain barrier if it means helping each other out.”

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2014-09-12 Mepunga farmer Tania Nevill to run for farmer health in Melbourne Marathon – Weekly Times

Photo source: Weekly Times