My view is that not only farmers but country people generally in Australia suffer an acute and ongoing sense of betrayal by the rest of the country, constrained to clear the country and 'feed the cities' by the state imposed conditions of their land purchase, incomes underwritten by quotas in place of initiative, then when overproduction, environmental degradation, species and biodiversity loss and other harms resulting from the regime became clear, they were the ones blamed for it.

Why then, all confidence and trust in anything governments later come up with destroyed, would they now turn to anyone for help? I've been close to it myself at times, and my family have been on the land in this country since 1840. The entire history of inland Australia is a history of betrayal, of blame and retribution - we've even been blamed for killing the Aboriginal people.

Within the next 40-50 years almost 95% of the Australian population will be living in urban zones primarily around the coastal fringe. Gone are the days when people who worked hard building this country were respected and allowance made for them through its capricious climate and market cycles. Gone are the days when real knowledge and experience in arid-land agriculture was considered a tangible national asset worth preserving.

Even here on The Conversation, I've sat here reading over and over again the most complete drivel. Few any more have a clue.

Suicide in these circumstances is not a mental health issue, but one of inflicted anomie brought about by the cultural shift away from Australia as a hard-working primary producer economy to an urbanised consumer economy no longer knowing or even caring where it all comes from.

So, from that point of view, from a struggling farmer's perspective, why would I help you any more? Why would I contribute to your health, well-being and economic stability any more? Why would I do anything at all for you, and in return be treated as little more than an ignorant red-neck yokel, a peasant, a rural second-cousin to be tolerated but not in public?

It gets to that point, doesn't it? Why anything. Why not just take the shotgun and go out with a bang?

With so many doing precisely that, instead it the phenomenon being seen as the intelligently thought-out and implemented political statement that it is in fact, following failure of all the demonstrations, representations, food dumping and lobbying over more than 50 years now, suddenly we have this new 'mental illness' thing happening.

I mean, why not simply apologise to all those people, as apologies have been demanded for everyone else?

Because, instead of copping it sweet like we have to, grin and bear it, the first thing politicians instinctively do is blame someone else, get the media to sidetrack the issue, cut funding to professionals carrying out research into these phenomena . . .

David Thompson, instead of 'developing mindfullness or insights into this feeling', why not just ask? Why not get out there and complete your field work?

I've been trying to gain access to and collaborate with your Men's health unit for years now, but as yet no response. My experience is that every approach to you is not a colleague but a potentially new client.

I have an Honours degree in Anthropology, years of postgraduate ethnographic field research, a second Honours degree in Letters and currently most of the way through a Masters in Criminal Justice all specifically focussed on child development risk and coming-of-age dysfunction in rural and remote communities, travelling thousands of kilometres back and forth over the years merely to be heard.

I mean, how on earth do we get access to your institutions, up there in big cities somewhere, gradually find our way around endless rabbit warrens of academic cloisters trying to find your office, even trying to find tutorial and seminar rooms much less our supervisors' rooms?

I mean, really, how much more bullshit do we have to negotiate just to start the process of communicating with you, on these issues in which you claim to have such an interest? What do you know about farming, or about inland Australia, or any such thing?

Let's face it. In real terms the ivory tower system is panoptic. Everyone else outside the particular study or research centre is merely an object to be mindfully scrutinised for insights.

I'm game. I keep coming back and back again. Rather than me trying to talk to you, why not talk to me? If not me someone like me, I don't care, someone in the same boat as all these suicidal farmers?

That's the start of the process, isn't it?

Oh Gil, how right you are. When media coverage abounds, inlacing articles such as "Think humans are special? Like the animals we eat, we’re meat too", which appeared in The Conversation tis week, it is no wonder farmers are disheartened to the point of despair.
Reading through the comments from this article has me wondering why my family and those that surround us bother to do our best to produce the food and fibre that sustains the very people who demonise our every effort.
Far from being the redneck land degraders with bloodlust in our eyes, tearing tiny creatures limb from limb to eat from their carcases, our families are constantly improving the farming systems in which we live and work. Always with the future in sight, we aim to protect our soil, water and animal resources in every way they can. Yet constant criticism from the comfort of a city-based living can drive you past the point of despair.

About 2002 I was responsible for managing drought assessment for the Commonwealth Exceptional Circumstances (EC) program. I visited a number of regional centres to listen to farmers and townsfolk talk about problems caused by drought etc., and, at one of these I experienced considerable "abuse", somewhat legitimately leveled at me from an irate farmer against the Government. When I returned to Canberra, I discovered that the EC program was partly (at times, largely) regarded as an instrument of Government, with the rules changing to suit the political expediences of the time. Mindful of the enormous pressures on the potential recipients of the benefits, I attempted to build in a much more cooperative (less arbitrary) system, only to be ruled out of order by (much) senior officers, in order to continue to use the process to control the states. Having been moved sideways to a less politically sensitive area, I declined to stay. These abuses of process were relatively minor, compared to others I am officially barred from discussing. I mention them only as an example of the callous disregard of Government (independent of flavour, I believe) that implicitly adds to the pressures to suicide in the bush.