It allowed workers to build personal relationships with psychologists, so they now proactively ask for help when they experience mental health challenges, Warakirri Cropping CEO Dale O'Neill said.
Warakirri Cropping rolled out its regional mental health program to its 11 farms across multiple jurisdictions several few years ago, after a successful 12-month pilot, he told OHS Alert.
It earned the employer the "farm safety solution" award at the 2025 WorkSafe Victoria Awards presented last month.
In the program, regional psychologists engaged by Warakirri Cropping visit each farm three times a year, and train workers in a familiar environment on topics like resilience, working in teams, and identifying concerning behavioural changes.
The applicable psychologist then invites workers to spend one-on-one time to talk about any issues, which has seen workers reach out for help dealing with difficult farming seasons, challenges on farms or personal problems.
"A lot of our employees took up that invitation, and that might've been going for a walk out in a paddock, it might've been going for a drive in the ute," O'Neill said.
He said the program is designed to be a preventative measure for managing psychosocial safety, which for Warakirri Cropping farms includes risks like isolation, job demands and fatigue.
Workers can develop a rapport with a psychologist so that "in the event they do need to reach out, they've already got that pre-existing relationship".
The program is much more suited to Warakirri Cropping's workforce than traditional EAPs.
"Each time you call an EAP, it's someone very different... They're often in a call centre, they're often in a capital city somewhere, so they're a little bit removed from what's going on," O'Neill said.
The farm psychologists, on the other hand, maintain a consistent presence inside the business and develop a good understanding of their farm teams and what the challenges are, he said.
The program has made a very positive impact on workers and garnered high engagement, so much so that it has now been extended to workers' family members, O'Neill revealed.
"We've seen our staff reach out to that psychologist outside of the scheduled visits, which I think for me is the most positive impact," he said.
Agriculture is known as a dangerous industry, but strong programs for physical and psychosocial safety focusing on controls do prevent incidents and injuries, he added.
"We're really proud of our focus on safety. We don't shy away from it, we're very open about it.
"We're very deliberate about it, in both our physical safety, but now also our mental safety or our psychosocial safety as well."
.svg)
.svg){kind=icon}