Farming must focus on sustainable rural communities, the environment and the human spirit if a growing trend of suicide among young rural men is to be tackled, a seminar heard yesterday.
Fr Harry Bohan was addressing a seminar organised by the farm advisory body Teagasc in Athenry, Co Galway, on rural suicide, which was part of the 24th biennial congress of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, which opened yesterday in Killarney.
The sociologist and author from Co Clare said the dramatic changes in the Irish rural landscape and farming were affecting society as a whole.
Gone were the days of communal activities such as "saving the hay" and spending days in the bog, and instead farmers had become isolated in a short space of time, Fr Bohan said. Mass production of crops with a high level of pesticides had solved the problem of food production but at enormous social and biological cost, he said.
"I think the farming of the future and the strengthening of the rural landscape will have to more scientific, but the science will have to be applied in a more ethical and sustainable way . . . sustainable of rural community, the environment and human spirit," he told the seminar.
He pointed to four reasons why "industrial agriculture" must change - the growing threat of disease such as cancer, the scarcity of resources such as oil and gas, the growing scarcity of water and the impact of cutting people off from nature.
The rise in rural suicides had coincided with a period of unprecedented transformation. The biggest cultural change that had taken place was "attitudes and meaning to life", he believed.
Fr Bohan said excessive regulation of farms, linked with a feeling of loss of control because of policy decisions being taken elsewhere, could be contributing to increased levels of suicide. He also drink was more likely to be a symptom of depression than a cause of suicide.
Teagasc recently announced it is to undertake a three-year study into rural male suicides because of growing concern at the increasing numbers.
The organisation has said there would appear to be a very high level of suicide in rural areas, not only by young men but by middle-aged men also.
The study will also attempt to establish the levels of rural suicide in males as there is currently no breakdown between rural and other areas.
Dr Anne Cleary of UCD, who is supervising the project, said rural suicide was a well-established international pattern that was related to social change.
She pointed to research which showed that young farmers had a sense of failed identity because they felt less well off economically and socially than those who had left the land. While previously they used to be their own bosses, surveys showed they were now seen as lonely and marginalised.
Dr Cleary said that Mediterranean countries with a slower pace of life - where having a siesta or sharing a glass of wine with a neighbour was the norm - had fewer suicides.
Other speakers at the seminar, which was attended by 45 people including those who had lost members of their family to suicide, stressed that farmers now had very little time for socialising.