The three issues that get the NFF's David Jochinke out of bed

As National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) President David Jochinke travels around Australia, speaking to farmers, there are three burning topics on his mind. He has committed to the NFF board and its members that he will speak about these issues whenever he’s given a microphone to speak to or on behalf of Aussie farmers. 

On the sidelines of FutureAg in Melbourne, Mr Jochinke shared with APlus News journalist Natasha Lobban what those three issues are, and why he is so committed to continuing the important conversations around them. 

Mental health – Pop the hood 

Mr Jochinke shakes his head as he says that those working in agriculture are three times more likely to suicide than the general population. 

It's hard to think about, but with the National Farmer Wellbeing Report's shocking results, it's impossible to ignore.

The report, commissioned by Norco in partnership with the NFF in 2023, found that in recent years, nearly half of Australian farmers (45%) have felt depressed, with almost two thirds (64%) experiencing anxiety. For one in seven (14%), it’s a frequent experience. 

Even more devastating, close to half of Australian farmers (45%) have had thoughts of self-harm or suicide, while close to a third (30%) have attempted self-harm or suicide. 

“Like everything, there's no silver bullet, so we're asking government not to look for a silver bullet, not to just find one thing and say job’s done,” Mr Jochinke said. 

“If you take it from a cultural sense, which is also farm safety in many ways, the culture of understanding, in destigmatising mental health and people just saying, 'I'm not doing so well. I just need to pop the hood on how I'm feeling, pop the hood on getting some advice from a GP or even a specialist'.  

“So having that initial conversation and just destigmatizing, that is the first step.  

“The second thing is to have the resources at hand. So what we are seeing is a gap within the segment of farmers wanting to talk to farmers, because generally everyone is kind of happy to talk to a stranger when the stranger understands their context.  

“So if you've ever been to a party and you've clicked with somebody and you've just been able to spill your life story, that's what the gap is within agriculture.  

“We've got some great facilitators out there. We've got some great resourcing. But that personal touch is a missing link and there are some small organisations that do that. So I'm not saying it's not there at all, but across the board there is a desire to have more."

He acknowledged that there was a funding gap but that ability to understand why a farmer may be upset when they find a problem with their maiden ewes, or the everyday niche problems and solutions that arise in farming, was also important.

"We're not saying that they need to be psychologists. We're not saying that they need to be top of their field in in mental health, but they do need to know the science," he said.

"They do need to know how to have conversations and do need to know how to escalate where needed.  

“Sometimes it's people just having a bad day needing to see a bit of forest from the trees and other times it's they need to have more direct intervention.” 

Farm safety – Eat that elephant 

DJ has been talking about farm safety since his time at the Victorian Farmers Federation, but this year the importance has hit home like never before. 

Three men died in farm incidents in just three weeks in the Wimmera region in February, including 91-year-old Wallup farmer Merv Thomas who died in a quad bike incident and was a neighbour of Mr Jochinke’s. 

Mr Thomas’ death came less than a week after 61-year-old Wimmera farmer Mick Morcom died in an auger incident at a Kellalac farm, about 10km south of Warracknabeal. 

The Warracknabeal community is also mourning the loss of 57-year-old farmer Mark Huebner, who died in a tractor rollover in early February. 

“We're in shock, the community is in shock, especially since it was one of the leaders of agriculture, one of the best farmers in our region, who passed and it has shook everybody to the degree where we're trying to make some good out of a very bad situation,” Mr Jochinke said. 

“We also want to say it's not an accident. It's an incident, because every situation can be avoided. We hate to admit it, but if done differently, if the auger was put down, would it have tipped over? More than likely it would have not tipped over.” 

He asked everyone to slow down and make sure that farmers had good working environments, that everyone knows the right procedures and to have conversations about farm safety. 

“It's been a catastrophic start to the year, but it's always been there too,” he said. 

“Once again for us it's culture, it's about having a toolbox conversation every morning going ‘well what are we trying to achieve here today? Are we doing it the safest way we can or are there other alternatives?’ 

“That's the start and having a culture of having a chat about safety and not being heroes not being gung-ho. That ‘I've done it 1000 times this way and it's never got my arm caught’. It’s that one time you slip. It's that one time you don't quite make the step right and you twist your leg and that hurts everybody. That's the thing.” 

So how does one start making progress on such as big issue? Mr Jochinke points out that small steps add up to big change. 

“The second part to the conversation is when industries are doing OK put a small budget line item to spend that $10,000 on upgrading that silo lid or that gate latch in the yards,” he said.  

“It's about eating that elephant, but you've got to start today. So just make the list and start chipping through it and you'll be surprised after a year or two how far you've come.” 

For those needing help getting started, he recommended farmers reach out to their state farming organisations, with many of them running farm safety visits for just this reason. 

He said farm safety was also about protecting farmers and their families from legal ramifications when something goes wrong. 

"If you do have a death if something tragic, really goes wrong and you haven't done anything about it, then you will feel the full force of the law and not only will it be a tragedy be compounded by potential litigation.” 

Know your carbon number  

Mr Jochinke said that farmers technically don’t need to baseline their farms' emissions right now, but that the time was fast approaching. 

“You can go along merrily and then one day the bank’s gonna go ‘If you want to get that loan for $3 million to buy the farm next door, what are you doing about sustainability?’ and everyone will go ‘What?’  

“Now we don't want it to be scary. We want people to just understand the system. There's some great calculators out there.” 

He said it didn’t need to be complicated, but it as important to know a farm’s footprint, and understand hpw much land is managed and how it is being managed.  

“And then from there going, right? My number might be a high number. I might be a high emitter, but I'm also highly productive. Part of our conversation here is to understand not only a number but how productive you are and we don't want to see productivity slip in this conversation.  

“If you're productive, we want to make sure you still remain productive. And if you've got to tweak your system a little bit, let it not be at the expense of productivity. Make sure it's a management thing that we can put into place.” 

Mr Jochinke said the industry wanted to be trending towards zero. 

"We believe agriculture shouldn't have a number that it should get to. And the minister (Murray Watt) has supported us in that view. But we just need to understand where we're at. 

“It's important for us to understand where we are within our production systems. It's important for us to understand the opportunities.  

“It's also important because consumers are focusing on more and more if we want to extract the premium out of the markets. They're the ones who make the choice. They're the ones who drive our profitability in high value markets. So we have to make sure that we're playing our part in that role too.”