No One Left to Call
[trigger warning: this article makes frequent mention of suicide and mental health - reader discretion is advised]
A few months ago I read a Circle of Wine Writers article where it stated that in 2021, within a space of two months, four French vignerons had died of suicide last year. In the article by Wink Lorch, entitled What Can We Do Better?, she discusses how small domaines are often strapped for time, cash and employees, and how seemingly successful wineries are barely breaking even. The responsibilities and burdens for the vigneron, she writes, can become overwhelming.
It was a disheartening and disconcerting read, and I began to wonder if macho culture and the burdens that come with traditional male norms made matters worse. Why? Because the four people that decided to take their own lives were not only all vignerons, they were also all male.
I also wondered how much the environment, the social and the cultural dynamics of the wine industry added on to an already overwhelmed individual. While the wine industry is a predominantly male one, for those working in viticulture it is also a rural industry, one firmly built on the idea of tradition. These are all important factors to consider; each of these factors comes with a particular set of social rules or norms that work to guide behaviour.
So what does it mean to work in a male-dominated industry? As a woman working in the industry I know, from my experience, that it is sexist, and that machismo underlies the culture of wine. In many regions, deep-seated prejudices and gendered stereotypes have created challenging environments, toxic ones.
It has only been in the past few years that some women have begun to feel safe and supported enough to disclose their experiences. As more and more women speak up, accounts from the US to France reveal that these are not isolated cases but a wider problem across an entire industry. Even then, the experiences are often dismissed swiftly, or denied entirely.
If this is what women face in the industry, then what do men face in return? If women are told to get over it or get out, then what messages do men get? In a trade where competition and bravado are the norm, are men, too, denied their vulnerability?
These thoughts and personal experiences have been my starting point and my frame of reference here. But as I researched this topic and discussed it with male colleagues and friends, it became clear that toxic masculinity or a macho culture was just the tip of the iceberg.
OVERWHELMED AND VERY OVERWHELMED
Last year a survey done in Mendoza, Argentina about the overall wellbeing of grape grower-producers revealed that 42.3% of those surveyed said they felt overwhelmed and 23% said they felt very overwhelmed. Work in the vineyards is physically demanding: a grape grower can work more than 10 hours a day, often alone, in ever changing weather conditions.
In addition, the risks that come with grape growing require constant monitoring throughout the year, year after year; pests, diseases, unpredictable weather are standard problems, but accidents and now the ever-increasing catastrophes related to climate change mean that losing 60%, 70% or 80% of the year’s crop is not only a possible issue, but a recurring one. As is often the case, the material or physical losses are often easier to empathise with, because the damage is visibly obvious. But what is harder for people to comprehend is the emotional impact these losses have.
A YouTube video posted by Domaine de la Grande Canague following the April frosts in 2021 in France shows a vigneronne grappling with some very heavy emotions: shock, sadness, disbelief, and frustration when she sees the state of the vines following a night with temperatures reaching -6C. She lost close to 80% of 60 hectares to unexpected frost. In a way, the video put a face to the climate crisis related to the world of wine, but it also showed how these events affect the human spirit. After two or three of these losses, how do you bounce back?
The creeping costs of climate change, for producers without the funds to plant on highlands or invest in expensive protective equipment, is forcing some farmers to consider abandoning their production entirely.
Loire producer Quentin Bourse’s (Le Sot de l’Ange) insurance premium went up by 82%, from 25,000 euros in 2021 to 48,000 euros in 2022 (12ha vineyard), due to increased climate risks. His level of outrage was such that he wrote an open letter to Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, asking for help:
“We fight every day, with all our strength, always taking on more risks to meet the ecological, economic and social challenges of our times… It is not up to farmers to pay with their lives the bill for repeated and traumatic climatic hazards. We ask you to act now.”
His level of frustration is understandable and yet, unimaginable to those not in his shoes. Grape growers are taking on more risks than ever before with little government support. Subsidies are supposed to help farmers, but they require hours of form-filling (now online) and getting through red-tape. This is time (and technology) that most farmers don’t have.
In Bourse’s case, he sees only two options: to cease all agricultural activity or forgo insurance on his vineyard, playing “russian roulette” not just with his future but that of his family and employees, too.
for these families, farming is a way of life, it forms part of their family history, and is the backbone of their identity
BACK AGAINST THE WALL
Financially, the pressure is huge for grape grower-producers. Bank loans and debts are a part of any business, but in wine, you only have one harvest a year from which you’ll earn your living. Someone who is already in debt and looking towards the upcoming harvest to balance the books, who then has hail fall on their crop, is in an awful situation.
To continue to take out loans (if the bank approves them) just escalates the problem, which can easily spiral out of control. And perhaps it is not just one bad year, but a series of them or a prolonged drought, like in the case of Mendoza growers who rely on scheduled irrigation from the state, many who have been cut off and are unable to achieve sufficient yields to stay afloat.
How do you repay a loan if you barely have an income? How do you pay input costs and material costs to keep the business running? How do you feed your family?
Some might say, well it’s the grape grower's financial mismanagement and bad business sense that got them into that position in the first place. But, a study on how drought stress impacted grape growers in Riverland, South Australia revealed that it was not the drought that pushed farmers to suicidal ideation, but structural conditions that created acute financial problems.
In our current political economy, family-owned farms are supposed to adapt to the market like a corporate enterprise, impersonal and unattached. The market regulates prices, thereby removing economic distortions and inefficiencies. If the family farm is inefficient, then it’s understood they should abandon the farm or “walk off the land”.
But the reality is much more complicated: for these families, farming is a way of life, it forms part of their family history, and is the backbone of their identity. These strong emotional attachments and years worth of work – generations even – make leaving unthinkable.
Suicide then becomes a viable option, the study concludes. It is a way out of a dire and desperate situation but, paradoxically, it is also a way to regain autonomy, to take control and denounce the very conditions that forced them to this end. In this way, “farmers’ suicides are communicative acts that intend to do more than just end a life; they convey a message of despair and protest and, therefore, a political message.”
The focus becomes the person when it is a systemic problem which affects our industry, our colleagues, and our friends.
ON MENTAL HEALTH
I started looking at these suicides through a gendered lens because for a long time I bought into gender stereotypes that were damaging on a personal level and a societal one. The messages that get transmitted and repeated are that men should toughen up, that they need to deal with it, that they should be a man and not show emotion.
These stereotypical notions of masculinity have a real impact: they prevent men from seeking help when they most need it, in turn preventing others from recognizing that need for help.
For farming men, these beliefs are amplified, becoming dangerous in the process; showing vulnerability, admitting hardship, taking time to rest or taking care of their health is often seen as weak. To make matters worse, in farming regions, there is a lack of mental health professionals. But even if a farmer wanted to find help, there is also a stigma that you must be crazy if you need to see a psychologist or a tendency to minimise struggles.
It’s no wonder the rate of suicides for male farmers is three times that of the general population. But farmer suicide becomes much more than a gendered issue when it affects the entire communities involved.
It has become clear to me that while yes, suicide is a mental health issue; a symptom of a major depression with profound suffering, with feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, isolation, shame and other deep-rooted emotions. But when aligned within a social and cultural dynamic, it bears a complexity that knows no bounds.
Our discomfort with mental illness limits our understanding of it. The taboo around suicide prevents society looking beyond individual cases. When we toss everything that doesn’t make sense into the loosely defined “mental illness” box, we deny that suicide in farming is related to a much larger social, economic and political landscape. The victim bears the blame: he/she was mentally fragile, weak, ill, tormented, couldn’t handle it. The focus becomes the person when it is a systemic problem which affects our industry, our colleagues, and our friends.
The exact circumstances that drive vignerons to take their lives may never be known, but what is certain is that farmer suicide has increased across the globe in the past twenty to thirty years. From India to Ireland, farmers, male and female, have a highest rate of suicide and the number of deaths in recent years is staggering. In France, the current suicide rate is one farmer every two days.
While there are different types of agriculture, varying sizes of land holdings, different national or state policies, and various cultural considerations, it would be naive to believe that vignerons are unaffected. Our romanticism with wine, this quasi-mystical beverage shrouded in beauty, creativity, and passion, starts to crack once placed on an agricultural pedestal.
Perhaps it is because of such a strong emotional response to this beverage that some truths are hard to understand, and sadly, even harder to admit.
Illustration by Elliot-James Comanescu
Edited by Rachel Hendry