The findings of the 2026 Norco National Farmer Wellbeing Report (NC Times, August 21) are deeply concerning, but for those of us who live and work in rural communities, they are sadly not surprising.
Farmers are navigating the cumulative impact of natural disasters, rising costs, uncertainty and isolation, with more than half of those surveyed reporting feeling depressed or down in the past two years. Although recognising the scale of this problem matters, recognition alone will not improve access to care.
When someone in a rural community decides they need psychological support, finding a psychologist they can actually see, and afford to keep seeing, can be another challenge altogether. Australia has a significant maldistribution of its psychology workforce, and rural and regional communities continue to experience poorer access to mental health services. At the same time, inadequate Medicare rebates leave too many Australians facing a substantial gap between the cost of psychological care and the support provided by Medicare. For rural Australians, workforce shortages and affordability barriers compound each other.
If we are serious about meeting mental health needs in rural and regional communities, we need to tackle both. Medicare rebates for psychology must better reflect the real cost of providing care so that accessing a psychologist is not determined by someone’s postcode or their capacity to pay. But we also need a serious, long-term rural psychology workforce strategy. One that supports psychologists to establish and sustain practices in rural communities, invests in rural training and supervision, and makes it possible for psychology students from rural and regional areas to train closer to home. We know rural students are more likely to become rural practitioners. Supporting them through university and placements is not simply student assistance; it is workforce policy.
The people who grow our food and sustain our communities deserve more than another report telling us they are struggling. They deserve timely, affordable access to qualified mental health professionals when they need them. If we are serious about responding to the mental health pressures facing Australian farmers, we must follow up our investment in encouraging people to seek help, by making sure that help is actually there when they do.
Dr Naomi Malone
Director, Australian Association of Psychologists
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