Pongaroa event brings laughs and lessons on mental health for farmers

Mud, Sweat and Cheers gave farmers a few laughs and a few lessons about looking after their health. Pictured are (from left) guest speaker Kane Brisco, organiser Rebecca Greaves, guest Megan Hull and MC Hamish McKay. Photo / Leanne Warr

Dairy farmer Kane Brisco found himself in a place where he didn’t want to do it anymore.

So he started a community initiative called Farm Fit.

The Taranaki farmer was part of the Mud, Sweat and Cheers event held at the Pongaroa Hotel earlier this month.

Kane was invited to speak on his journey at the event, which included broadcaster Hamish McKay as MC and Black Sticks co-captain Megan Hull.

Hamish kicked things off with organiser Rebecca Greaves, who thanked those who had travelled a long way to be there.

She also thanked the owners of the Pongaroa Hotel, who had provided the venue, making the event possible.

“They’re amazing community people and I think we’re lucky to have a pub that supports us so much.”

Sponsors, who had provided spot prizes, were also thanked for their contribution to the night, which had been organised for local farmers to give them a night away from the farm.

Hamish McKay talks to Black Sticks co-captain Megan Hull at the Mud, Sweat and Cheers event in Pongaroa. Photo / Leanne Warr

Hamish also performed an interview on the spot with Megan, who talked a little about her experience at the Tokyo Olympics, as well as her upcoming tournaments.

Then it was on to the main speaker of the night, Kane, who told the audience he had been a dairy farmer for around 13 or 14 years.

Kane gave some insight into how physical issues and stressful events can affect mental health. Photo / Leanne Warr

His initiative, Farm Fit, came out of his own journey of struggling to get up every day and go to work.

“I’ve been incredibly passionate about farming since I can remember but I found myself in a place where I didn’t want to do it anymore.”

He says he found himself struggling with all the pressures of finances, stress, family and life, but managed to find a way through it.

Farm Fit was designed to get people fitter and exercising and “doing something where they don’t actually think about farming for an hour or so”, Kane says.

“Really it was about getting people together to do something a bit different.

“I use training and exercise as a tool to help me get myself better mentally and figured it might help a few others out there.”

Kane says for the past four years he has been running “boot camps” as well as doing some public speaking and “just trying to get people to look after themselves”.

“I genuinely do believe that when you look after yourself, you become a better farmer, you become a better person to be around and life just tends to get a little bit better.”

He used an interactive element to demonstrate by choosing members from the audience, with one to hold up a chair and four others to help him hold it.

Each of the four were told they represented four things that make up a lot of health and all feed into mental health: movement, stress, sleep and nutrition.

With the young man holding the chair, Kane said he represented a person with a job, looking after himself, sleeping well and getting good meals.

“I’m a big believer that you can’t have good mental health without good physical things to support it,” Kane said.

In the hypothetical situation, the volunteer has an injury which means he can’t do his job, and slowly the other volunteers let go of the chair, representing how things can upset the balance.

Eventually the chair gets heavier for the one person trying to hold it up.

As Kane explains, most farmers have been in a place where one thing happens and it snowballs.

“Before you know it, there’s not much help [and it] feels like you’re doing everything on your own.”

In his journey, Kane says he started off doing 50-50 sharemilking and at first the returns were good, but the next year they dropped and the year after they dropped again.

He says he found himself in a place where he couldn’t make his budgets work.

“I stopped playing rugby. I had no money and thought the only way I could get out of it was by working harder.”

But that caused more stress and by not playing sport, he became unfit, which then led to other problems, such as fatigue.

“When you’re fatigued, you start making bad decisions. I got more stressed and when you’re stressed and you can’t sleep at night, you want to eat lots more sugar.

“It all just snowballs and turns into a big hole of losing hope, losing purpose and all that sort of thing.”

Kane continued the interactive demonstration by getting the other four volunteers to once more hold onto the chair, telling the audience it shows the power of community.

“I think it’s really special when we see people go through adverse events. You go through these things and the community comes together - I’m sure there’s many stories out there of helping each other out.

“That’s the special bond that you lift other people up.

“The key is not to lose it when everyone gets back to normal.”

Kane told those gathered it was fantastic to see them there.

“We get together, we can talk to people. Just have a general yarn. I think that’s super important.”