Will, a beef and arable farmer from Bangor-on-Dee, near Wrexham, was the guest speaker at the NFU Cymru Anglesey County Conference held at Nant yr Odyn on Thursday 23 January.
'Riding the farming rollercoaster'
Will’s presentation, titled ‘Riding the farming rollercoaster’, explored his journey to becoming a 10th generation farmer, as well as detailing many of the off-farm opportunities that came his way since starting the ‘Rock & Roll Farming’ podcast in 2017. Originally intended as a modest medium to ‘raise ordinary farming voices’, the popularity of the podcast sky-rocketed, generating over two million downloads. Before he knew it, Will found himself interviewing several well-known authors, environmentalists and even a sitting Secretary of State, while still recording episodes with farmers from across the UK and around the world.
As well as filling a niche in the market for a conversation-led farming podcast, the show also became known for its sensitive and detailed discussions around mental health. Will told the audience this was something he was very proud of given the subject was rarely discussed at the time. He explained that he was encouraged by the feedback he’d received, which evidenced that broadcasting those conversations was beneficial to listeners suffering with their own difficulties.
Support
However, in 2019 Will began to feel overwhelmed by his own ‘creeping sense of sadness’ at a time when his farm was devastated by flooding and he’d taken on a heavy workload off-farm, too. This led to a mental health breakdown, with Will giving the conference audience a unique insight into his mentality at the time; describing feeling anxious, losing perspective and being wracked with guilt that he had, in some way, let family and friends down.
Will talked about the support he’d had from his doctor, as well as highlighting the on-going importance of maintaining good habits, exercising regularly and recognising the triggers which could affect his mental health. Since getting back to improved health, Will has gone on to become lead weekly columnist for Farmers Weekly and was Chairman of the prestigious Oxford Farming Conference for 2024.
He ended his inspiring talk by saying: “It goes to show that you never really know who’s struggling. It has helped me a lot to talk about what I’ve been through. If it helps one person who is suffering to hear that someone else has been through something similar and they’ve got through it, then it’s something good that has come out of something bad.”
Ambassador
Will is now an ambassador for the Farming Community Network charity and revealed to the conference that he plans to kickstart the Rock & Roll Farming podcast to share more inspiring farming stories with listeners.
NFU Cymru Anglesey County Chairman Richard Rogers said: “On behalf of the Anglesey members in attendance at the meeting, I’d like to thank Will for his eloquent and honest account of his own personal experiences of challenges with his mental health. This is such an important topic and the industry is fortunate to have an ambassador like Will tackling this taboo subject, removing the stigma and bringing these important conversations out into the open.”