RABI paid out £1.4m in 2018 to support retired and elderly farmers

The charity also offers financial support for elderly and disabled farming people to continue living safely in their own homes
The charity also offers financial support for elderly and disabled farming people to continue living safely in their own homes

A farming charity has paid out more than £1.4m in regular grants last year to financially support retired, elderly, and disabled farmers.

The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RABI), a welfare charity which offers financial support to farmers in hardship, paid out the huge sum of money during 2018.

Around 84% of all the people the charity helps are no longer working, with many having retired or stopped farming due to sickness.

Alicia Chivers, CEO of RABI, said: “People are sometimes surprised to discover that we support retired farmers as well as working ones. In fact our reach goes a whole lot wider than that to include retired farm workers, dependants, widows and widowers.

“Our aim is to be there for ‘farming people’ throughout their lives, not just during the days when they’re fit enough to work the land and help put food on our plates.”

The charity also offers financial support for elderly and disabled farming people to continue living safely in their own homes.

In 2018, it paid around £190k to fund disability equipment, aids, home adaptions and home help.

It also helps those who have moved or would like to move into care homes. Last year, around £197k went towards covering the shortfall between individual funding from local authorities and care home fees.

RABI runs two of its own residential care homes: Beaufort House in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset and Manson House in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Each of the homes can accommodate more than 30 residents, who are often from a farming background.