Shedloads of colour: how a move away from grey buildings could help farmers’ mental health

theguardian.com:

The modern-day farm is rarely a thing of beauty. While a farmyard in Britain might for many still conjure up a bucolic idyll and freely roaming animals, the reality is often no more than a collection of bland metal sheds.

It turns out that a large, windowless, temperature-controlled shed can be the most efficient way to house and fatten up farm animals, particularly chickens. But among many downsides for the animals’ health and welfare, it is also leaving farmers miserable.

“Farmers choose a life on the land, but are forced to spend their time in sheds,” says Yorkshire-based farmer Chris Harrap, who has written about the impact of building design on farmers and livestock.

“For thousands of years farming had been about managing land and animals. Then suddenly people figured out we could move to intensive indoor methods and the same buildings went from storing stuff, to being where you spent a whole lot of time,” he says.

The result, says Harrap, is devastating for farmers’ mental health. He believes the comparatively high suicide rate in the sector may be connected to farmers’ day-to-day working environment.

“Human beings and animals need to interact with the natural world from which we came, but instead they’re spending all day inside an intensive indoor shed,” he says.

One farm trying to counter that narrative is run by Ben and Helen Taylor-Davies near Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire.

Ben’s father tried to talk him out of his career choice, fearing farming was fast becoming a lonely profession, with most producers believing their futures relied on ever-bigger sheds and greater focus on just a few types of animals or crops.

In the US it is common for farms to have 40,000 cattle and not many humans – it’s surprising how few staff are