The government has committed $98,000 to New Zealand Young Farmers’ 100 Champions Rural Wellbeing Programme, seeding resilience coaching and peer-led mental health advocacy into the sector through the top competitors.

Cheyne Gillooly, CEO of New Zealand Young Farmers, says the programme draws on the roughly 200 competitors who enter FMG Young Farmer of the Year each year.

“What we want to do is be able to recognise the performance and the resilience that comes from that,” he says.

“[It will] give them resilience coaching, give them access to some mentors and help them build themselves into the best version of themselves they can be for that competition.

“Through that, they’ll go out and become 100 Rural Champions for mental health and wellbeing and performance in the sector.”

Young Farmers is working closely with Farmstrong on the 100 Champions.

“It’s authentic; it’s coming from the generation who are going to be the future managers, who are going to be the future owners.

“We need to help them design it and build the language around how they talk – there’s no point pushing it down from the top.”

CountryWide CONNECT with Andy Thompson & Sarah Perriam-Lampp is our daily rural show livestreamed from 11am-1pm. Visit country-wide.co.nz on how to watch/listen or download the CountryWide CONNECT mobile app, available on Apple iOS and Android.