BY NATASHA SCHAPOVA

Being an intergenerational dairy farmer and purchasing his own farm at just 22, Warren Davies thought he would be a lifelong farmer. That is, until climate change rerouted his plans. 

In the early 2000s, his hometown Kyabram was devastated by floods, followed closely by drought. 

“The flood triggered my mental health journey. It happened during October and when I was a dairy farmer that was peak production time, and basically it just wiped out everything,” Mr Davies said.

Mr Davies began to work harder to restore his farm, but quickly realised that his efforts did little to tackle the impacts of climate change. 

“The droughts just continued and we ended up losing our farm," he said.

“I think farmers are known as being stoic and resilient and they know that’s part of the business.

"I call mother nature my silent business partner because she’s always in the background, and the bottom line is - she’s pulling all the strings and you can only control so much."

For Mr Davies, now 54, his farm was his life. When he lost it in 2004, he began to experience depression and anxiety.

“My farm was my everything, my 24/7, my home, my job, where my kids grew up, where my wife and I built a business, it was all encompassing. So losing that farm, I lost my identity,” he said.

This experience prompted him to become a keynote speaker, known as The Unbreakable Farmer, promoting conversations around mental health to other farmers and rural communities.

“If you don’t feel right and you’re facing challenges, you need to talk to people about it otherwise it just gets on top of you,” Mr Davies said.

“I know in Gippsland and the Upper Murray where I did work with bushfire communities, the bushfire was obviously a major disaster, but it was also the cumulative effect of two to three years prior to the bushfire of the drought, and the struggle through that, and then the bushfire was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

“And that’s the thing that can tip people over the edge, you know people are already struggling in silence with their mental health and then you get a catastrophic event like that that just goes bang and hits you.”

Mr Davies said the frequency of extreme weather events was unusual and each occurrence worsened his mental health.  

“When we first started dairy farming we used to have seven good years and then one bad year and two ordinary years and now, it’s probably reversed. You have maybe two good years, seven pretty ordinary years and one disastrous year,” he said.

“Uncertainty is one of those things that takes a toll on your mental health, not knowing what’s coming next and if it’s going to get better, and I think the way people were feeling last year is similar to how farmers feel when they’re facing weather or climate issues, that uncertainty. When’s it going to rain next, and is it ever going to get better."

But climate change does not solely affect farmers, with a Sustainability Victoria study finding that young Victorians are impacted by eco-anxiety more than adults, by almost 20 per cent. Almost half of these young Victorians are reportedly feeling frustrated, or overwhelmed, by climate change.

Climate activist Bella Burgemeister was one of eight teenagers involved in the class action, during the School Strikes 4 Climate protest in May, that resulted in a federal reform that established the duty of care that Environment Minister Sussan Ley has to protect young people from the climate crisis. This reform aims to prevent the construction of new mines in Australia. 

Ms Burgemeister, 15, said it was “scary” to see how many young people are experiencing climate anxiety and depression. 

“We’re already seeing how climate change is causing my generation and future generations harm. The bleaching of our coral reefs, the huge floods and massive fires, and we’re going to be the ones who see the future impacts,” she said.

Climate activism helps to reduce Ms Burgemeister’s eco-anxiety by taking action to slow ecological harm. 

“I think everybody needs to start doing something. It doesn’t have to be a big thing,” she said.

“Our government needs to step up and take more responsibility. We are a first-world nation and we should be doing more and taking more responsibility for what’s happening around the world.”

Climate psychologist Dr Susie Burke created The Climate Change Empowerment Handbook, which outlines psychological strategies to tackle climate change. The handbook promotes activism and communication.

“If we do something about the problem that’s stressing us, we feel better. Plus, going to a protest or ringing politicians actually has a potential to reduce the threat that threatens you,” Dr Burke said. 

“When we talk to someone else we unite with a shared and common humanity, so it stops us from feeling alone and frightened and insecure in the world, and helps us to see that other people are like us.”

Dr Burke said people often blame big corporations and the government for climate change to dismiss their own inaction. 

“Too many people are leaving somebody else to do it, to advocate, to ring politicians, to get out and join the kids on the school strike, and all those sorts of things, then the politicians are not getting the message loud and clear that the community are absolutely with them in developing good carbon policies,” she said. 

But, while working to slow climate change, Mr Davies said it was important to give equal attention to your mental health. The former dairy farmer wishes he shared his struggles earlier while facing the floods and droughts that devastated his farm. 

“Everyone’s travelling a journey that could be the same as yours but that person perceives it differently and they’ve picked up different wisdom from it, and if we share that wisdom we could help each other to find the solutions to the challenges that we’re facing.”