Drought fuels rising stress in Swiss farming families

The long drought and extreme weather events are not only testing fields and barns. According to the Bäuerliches Sorgentelefon, the telephone helpline for the farming community, psychological stress in Swiss farming families is on the rise.

The association points out that the number of requests for help is not easily comparable with that of previous years. The difference lies in the scale of the phenomena: extreme events used to hit limited areas, whereas today they affect large portions of the national territory. It is no longer just individual regions that suffer, but the sector as a whole.

Callers describe very concrete difficulties. There are animal diseases that force farmers to cull their livestock, extremely poor or entirely failed harvests, and a chronic shortage of water for irrigation and consumption. Production costs are climbing while market prices collapse. Many farms also have to buy fodder at high prices, when they manage to find it at all.

The extra work weighs heavily too. Several farmers irrigate at night and lose hours of sleep, a sacrifice that feeds anxiety. On the phone, callers express a sense of powerlessness in the face of the weather and fear for the very survival of their farm.

When the pressure comes home

The helpline's counsellors observe that domestic stress has two sides. It can strengthen bonds, but it can also increase the risk of crises and conflicts between family members. "Più a lungo durano gli stress e gli straordinari, maggiore è la probabilità di tensioni" (the longer stress and overtime last, the more likely tensions become), says the association's head of communication.

One detail helps put the phenomenon into perspective: women turn to the service more often than men. These are voices that tell of the often invisible human cost of increasingly difficult seasons.

The warning comes from a sector whose income depends directly on the weather and which has little margin to absorb years like this one. If events of this magnitude were to recur, the question will not be purely agronomic: it will also concern the practical and psychological support owed to those who work the land and to their families.