Teenage Boys on the Farm: Why Young Men in Agriculture Are Reaching Breaking Point | Young, Male, and Farming: The Mental Health Crisis Facing the Next Generation — and the Hidden Struggle With Masculinity
How Therapy Can Support Young Farmers
Did you know this about UK farmers?
Before I talk about this topic of male farmers, the facts alone paint a serious picture of what men in farming are carrying on their backs.
84% of principal farmers are male.
Women make up 22% of registered farmers and 32% of the wider agricultural workforce (ONS, 2023).
The average Farm Business Income was £41,500 in 2023/24.
The average farmer works 65 hours a week — nearly double the UK average of 37 hours. Many growers and livestock producers push 80–100+ hours.
Farming is also an ageing workforce:
40% of farmers are over 65
Only 2% are under 35
The average farmer is 59 years old (Compared to teachers and nurses at 43, and most doctors and dentists under 35.)
The fatality statistics are even more sobering. In the UK, the average age of someone who dies in agriculture is around 60 (55 in Wales). Over the last five years:
10.5% of fatalities were children under 13
5.3% were aged 18–39
57.9% were aged 40–64
26.3% were 65+
91% of farmers say poor mental health is a major problem in the industry.
36% report being at risk of depression.
42% experienced significant stress and anxiety in the past year (RABI).
Among younger farmers, the alarm bells are even louder: 95% of UK farmers under 40 say poor mental health is one of the biggest hidden issues in farming today (Farm Safety Foundation). Longer working hours, isolation, unpredictable markets, financial pressure, animal disease, weather, paperwork, and generational expectations all hit mental wellbeing hard.
The ONS recorded 36 suicides in farming and agriculture in 2021 — a number experts say is likely underreported.
As of 2025, there are an estimated 96,900 farmers in the UK, but 462,000 people work in agriculture when you include partners, spouses, and workers. This is a huge community carrying huge pressure — often silently.
Can We Talk About Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Boys and Men Who Defy Norms? The Mental Health Struggles of Gypsy, Roma & Traveller Men Who Defy Norms
Britain often prides itself on diversity. I keep hearing about EDI, where ever I go. I keep hearing about reasonable adjustments. Yet there is a population so close and yet so unseen that most people could not name a single one of its members. Gypsy, Roma and Traveller boys and men are among the least represented and least understood groups in the country. And within that already invisible world exists an even smaller one — boys and men who think differently, love differently, dream differently. The ones who ask questions that make the elders uncomfortable. The ones who want to heal, to study, to collaborate, or to simply breathe outside of tradition. These are the invisible minority within the invisible minority, and it’s time we talked about them.
According to NHS data, suicide among Gypsy and Traveller men is estimated to be up to six times higher than the national average. Yet few services exist that understand the pressures these men face, or the quiet rebellions that stir among them. Behind those numbers are untold stories, men who question, who doubt, who want something different. A Traveller man who seeks therapy in secret. A boy who wants to study law instead of laying tarmac. A father who leaves the road to protect his children from violence. They are the ones caught between honour and honesty, between heritage and healing. To understand them is to understand a Britain that has long looked away.
Sexual Violence Against Boys and Men — The Taboo, Undocumented, Unresearched Secret World
Sexual Violence Against Boys and Men — The Taboo, Undocumented, Unresearched Secret World
I’m sitting across from a man in his 40s. By all intents and purposes, he is well-dressed, confident and he smells good. He looks like someone who might give a presentation at work or buy a round of drinks at the pub. Behind the obvious, when he had walked through my therapy door 5 mins earlier, I could tell there was something behind his eyes, I could sense it, but I awaited to see and hear more from him. It’s our first session. I go through confidentiality, explain pluralistic therapy, and let him know that he can begin wherever he feels comfortable. The room is quiet, the kind of silence that stretches and tests the air between two people. It is as if he is waiting for me to start to intiate, but I hold the silence and space for him to begin. Then, after a pause that feels like forever, he looks at me and says, “I was a prisoner of war.” His voice is flat, almost rehearsed, but his eyes tell a different story. He explains that during his capture, he was tortured and raped repeatedly. For several days, they used his body as a weapon against him, assaulting him, forcing him to watch as other men were also raped and brutalized. Some of those men never came back. Others were mutilated before his eyes. He describes how they would hang him upside down, bind him, and hurt him in ways that words struggle to hold. He has never spoken about it until this moment. Since returning home, he has tried to take his own life more than once. The memories come like waves — sudden, unstoppable, and merciless. The shame, the loss of control, the guilt of survival, they’ve all lived inside him, unspoken, for years now. Sitting across from him, I am aware of the privilege and the burden of this first disclosure. Therapy, for him, is not about insight or coping strategies, not yet. It’s about giving shape to something that was never meant to be spoken, something buried beneath discipline, silence, and fear. In that moment, my role isn’t to fix or analyse. It’s to hold the unbearable, to let his story breathe for the first time without interruption, disbelief, or shame. This man is not an exception. He is part of a silent population of males in Britain, the uncounted, the unheard, and the unseen. I have heard so many stories like this. Stories that most people would either not believe or would laugh at. One client told me that he once refused to have sex with his girlfriend because he wasn’t in the mood. Over the years, she would mock him, call him pathetic, say he wasn’t a real man — and eventually, she would coerce him. “You don’t have to do anything,” she would say, “just lie there.” I’ve had multiple clients tell me they’ve woken up to find their partner having sex with them. Others have shared that objects were inserted into their anus without consent, by their girlfriends or wives. And then comes the question: how do you even report this? Who do you tell about this level of violation and humiliation? How do you walk into a police station and try to explain that your girlfriend or your wife sexually assaulted you? Stories like these don’t make the newspapers. They don’t appear in national statistics. In fact, they rarely get heard at all. Time and time again, we are told that the vast majority of sexual violence is experienced by women and girls, and while that’s undeniably true in many cases, it’s not the full picture. It doesn’t reflect the hundreds upon hundreds of men I’ve sat with in therapy who have told me their stories, stories of coercion, violation, and shame. I believe one of the major issues in British society is that we do not take male rape and sexual violence seriously. We are not recording it properly, we are not researching it deeply, and we are certainly not building systems that make it easier for male survivors to come forward. And if we already recognise how difficult it is for women to report sexual violence — due to shame, disbelief, and stigma, we must also acknowledge that for men, that difficulty can be even greater. We also need to recognise that male sexual violence manifests differently. For many men, it happens in the context of war or coercion, not necessarily brute physical force. Let’s be honest here now, in most cases, women cannot overpower their male partners physically. But some use other forms of control, manipulation, emotional coercion, humiliation, and threats, to force compliance. These tactics are just as violating, but far less recognised. And this doesn’t begin in adulthood. I cannot tell you how many boys have told me in therapy that they “lost their virginity” at 12, 13, 14, or 15 — to a woman or girl much older than them. These experiences are not rare; they are disturbingly common. This isn’t about diminishing what women and girls endure. It’s about expanding the truth to include what boys and men endure too. Because until we can name it, count it, and talk about it, these men will remain where they have always been: silent, invisible, and alone.
Heartbreak Isn’t Just for Women: The Reality of Male Heartbreak
Why Don’t We Talk About Male Heartbreak?
When a man’s heart breaks, the world often looks away. Society has made it easier for men to show anger than to show pain. From a young age, boys are taught to “man up,” to swallow their emotions and keep moving. So when heartbreak hits—when love ends, trust is shattered, or a child is lost—many men have no language for it. They don’t cry in public, they don’t talk to their mates, and they certainly don’t post about it online. Instead, they go quiet, bury themselves in work, the gym, or distractions that help them avoid what’s really going on inside. Part of the reason we don’t talk about male heartbreak is that it doesn’t fit within most people’s frame of reference. We have been conditioned to view heartbreak as something that happens to women and is caused by men. So when a man speaks about emotional pain, people unconsciously dismiss it or minimise it because it disrupts the familiar story. It forces us to re-examine what we think we know about masculinity, strength, and vulnerability. Breaking that frame means acknowledging that men suffer in silence not because they don’t feel, but because they’ve been taught that feeling makes them less of a man. Psychologist Ronald Levant, in his work on the “Normative Male Alexithymia” hypothesis, describes how many men have been “socialised out of emotional awareness.” They can sense distress in their bodies—tight chests, restlessness, insomnia—but struggle to put words to what they feel. In therapy, this can show up as irritation, numbness, or even humour masking heartbreak.Get in touch
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