Farming can be a tough life.

Long hours of hard, physical toil in torrential rain, or cold, windy weather wears you down.

Then there's the loneliness brought on by working alone, never mind the pressures of meeting seasonal deadlines in spite of the weather. On top of that farmers have to contend with restrictive rules and regulations and a mass of bureaucracy, while some have financial worries.

Farmers are often reluctant to confide their problems to their wives, never mind their friends. Keeping all your worries to yourself can be a recipe for depression.

Sadly, it all gets too much for some and farming has a much higher suicide rate than most other occupations. Farmers under the age of 45 are more likely to commit suicide than any other group in society. That's partly due to the fact that farmers have ready access to the means.

We also have an unenviable record on health and safety, with high numbers and rates of fatal injury. Just over one in a hundred workers (employees and the self-employed) work in agriculture, but it accounts for about one in five fatal injuries to workers. According to the latest HSE (Health and Safety Executive) figures, the average worker fatality rate, over the last five years, is much higher than in any other industry section.

Despite all that, according to Cabinet Office research, it appears that being a farmer or working in agriculture makes you happy. If you're a farm manager you can count yourself in the top three occupations for levels of life satisfaction, behind only the clergy and chief executives.

Meanwhile, if your passport says "farmer" you're in the top ten, coming in at eighth of the 274 jobs investigated - although your average salary of £24,500 is outstripped by much of the satisfaction top 50.

Debt collectors, "elementary construction workers" and publicans seem to have the least life satisfaction.

I can't disagree with the Government's findings, and on reflection I did get a lot of satisfaction from my career in farming. Having said that, I often forgot why I ever wanted to be a farmer when I was embroiled in the day-to-day management of the farm - rushing about trying to keep on top of my work, and becoming bad tempered through hold ups as a result of breakdowns or bad weather.

Constantly striving to improve performance and yields in spite of disease, parasites, pests or bad weather. Worrying over unpaid bills, an increasing overdraft due to bad prices or crop failures as a result of bad weather.

Yes, you will have gathered that the weather has a lot to do with a farmer's moods.

It can have the biggest impact on farm profits and is completely out of our control. At the end of the day, farmers are in the hands of Mother Nature.

I remember an evening in late June one year, that followed a particularly harsh winter and late spring.

Finally the weather had turned and we were enjoying a fine, warm spell. Crops and grass had started to grow vigorously, making up for lost time. Cattle and sheep love to have the sun on their backs and the extra warmth had got them on the thrive.

As I walked round the farm that evening after a gloriously hot day, the cattle were contentedly chewing their cud. I stopped for a while and leant on my stick to admire them.

I was surrounded by some of the most beautiful and majestic scenery in Scotland. All around peewits and curlews made their plaintive calls on the wing, while skylarks were soaring and singing. All were enjoying the glorious gift of life on a fine summer evening.

That's why I became a farmer. Not to make profits. I farmed because it was all I ever wanted to do and because I enjoyed it more than anything else.

I bred the next generation of livestock to be better, grew heavier crops or improved the land not for money, but for the sheer love of doing a good job.

Obviously I had to make profits or I would have failed, but profit wasn't the main motive. If that had been my only goal, there were easier ways to make money than farming.

No matter how well paid, no job is worth doing if you don't enjoy it. It took a bunch of contented cattle to remind me how lucky I was to be a farmer.