Craig Calvert shares how he’s managed taking over the family farm

Life has presented challenge after challenge for Craig Calvert since he took over the family dairy farm. This is his story.

Dairy farmer Craig Calvert pictured on his Wiseleigh property. Picture Yuri Kouzmin

Life has presented challenge after challenge for Craig Calvert since he took over the family dairy farm in 2018.

It was at the tail end of one of the nation’s worst drought periods; at the time, twice the work was needed, for half the usual production.

Then in January 2020, the horrific Black Summer bushfires raged across his mixed sheep and dairy property in East Gippsland.

When it finally rained, it did pour, and his land has flooded 10 times in the past 13 months.

Craig Calvert says too many farmers still believed mental health issues were an “embarrassing” private affair. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

“Farming is a marathon. You might just be getting back on your feet then ‘boom’, you’re back at the start. Sometimes you don’t know if there is enough in the tank,” Mr Calvert said.

He is far from alone.

The just-released Norco and National Farmers’ Federation National Farmer Wellbeing Report found 56 per cent of farms were significantly affected by drought in the past five years, 48 per cent by flooding, 24 per cent by mouse plague and 19 per cent by bushfires.

A third of respondents found it difficult to cope with the compounding impacts of multiple disasters, with 40 per cent saying they were emotionally drained by rebuilding farms and animal welfare issues, and 36 per cent felt a helplessness.

Mr Calvert said too many farmers still believed mental health issues were an “embarrassing” private affair, with the “stigma” of letting a specialist audit their lives a bridge too far.

“Many farmers suffer in silence and that is when things can break and they can lose their finances, marriages and, sometimes, the will to live,” Mr Calvert said.

Mr Calvert said the kick in the guts for many who bravely reached for help from a “world of hurt” was to find a paucity of mental health support services in the regions.

“I wasn’t suicidal but I wasn’t dealing with things properly, so I had a good chat with a doctor and he sent me to a specialist in Bairnsdale, it has been a really worthwhile,” he said.