Women in the agricultural industry are showing 'concerning' levels of stress and anxiety – that's the worrying findings of a new study.

Financial pressures, long working hours and isolation have been contributing to growing issues, researchers warned. Balancing childcare, caring responsibilities and non-farming work, and gender inequalities within agriculture could also be exacerbating mental health issues, it said.

Some 23% of women who took part in the research had anxiety, a further 34.6% were experiencing mild anxiety, whilst 42.1% were not suffering from anxiety.

The study, which was published in the Journal of Agromedicine, was carried out by Dr Rebecca Wheeler and Professor Matt Lobley, from the University of Exeter, and funded by the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institute (RABI).

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The study included 15,300 members of the agricultural community and the results came from a subsection of nearly 3500 females that took part.

Discussing her findings, Dr Wheeler said: "This study had found concerning levels of anxiety among farming women in the UK and this should be seen as a call to action.

"There are clear associations between anxiety, stress and loneliness and, although we cannot ascertain causality, these point to issues that demand attention in efforts to improve mental health.”

Professor Lobley backed her sentiments, pointing out that addressing only the symptoms of mental health problems would be insufficient.

He said: "There is a need to reduce some of the stressors commonly affecting farm women by, for instance, providing greater business-related support and seeking opportunities to help farm women build and maintain stronger social relationships.”

The future of the farm, workload, isolation and relationships with family and financial pressures are the factors found to have the strongest relationship with moderate and severe anxiety.

Levels of loneliness were at the highest levels among women aged 25 to 34, and markedly higher than equivalent levels in the wider population. This subsection was also found to be the most likely to be anxious.

Working-aged women appeared more likely to be stressed by feeling isolated, family relationships and workload than older women – all factors that were identified as most strongly associated with moderate/severe anxiety.

Younger women were more stressed by financial pressures and to a lesser extent concerns about the future of the farm/farming, than older women. Half of those aged between 25 and 44 said they were stressed 'quite a lot'/'to a large extent' by financial pressures.

There was a statistically significant association between anxiety levels and how often respondents said they felt lonely. A total of 64.5% of those who were often or always lonely were classified as having 'moderate'/'severe' anxiety, compared to just 7.4% of those who were never lonely.