Martin Cassidy BBC Northern Ireland rural affairs correspondent

So what has happened to a farming industry which is haemorrhaging people and pleading more than ever for public sympathy and support?

In a new series called Farm Lives, BBC Northern Ireland opens the farm gate to look at contemporary agriculture and the way it impacts on the lives of local people who work the land.

New series looks at contemporary agriculture

The series features farming families - including Sperrins sheep farmer Ian Buchanan - who examines a vet's bill he cannot afford to pay. He wonders what lies ahead for himself and his young family.

Producer Iain Webster admits to being a country boy at heart but after a career in journalism, what prompted him to spend the best part of a year observing and documenting farm lives?

"I wanted to find out why so many farm businesses were closing and why young people were increasingly turning their back on a traditional way of life," he said.

The statistics look bleak, showing that 1,300 farm businesses have closed in the last two years and that the average age of the Northern Irish farmer is now 58, surviving on an average weekly income of �88.

It's clear that poor prices, animal health problems and the isolation and stresses of rural life are taking their toll and young people are turning away from the farming industry.

Lilly Weir travels to markets with the charity Rural Support

But Farm Lives also taps into the spirit of a country people who still enjoy the warmth and comradeship of fellow farming folk.

Fermanagh farmer Derek Thornton has retained his sense of humour, despite the tough times. His son, Mark, wants to break the trend of young people leaving the land, but realises he will have to get a part time job to make ends meet.

In Lilly Weir from Dungannon, the series finds the resilience and determination of rural people to retain their way of life and the communities in which they have grown up.

Lilly questions supermarket prices at a time when farmers accuse them of lowering their incomes.

She also travels around livestock markets with the charity Rural Support, offering free health checks to farmers and their families.

Fermanagh farmer Derek Thornton features in the series

Iain Webster concludes that farming and rural communities would have collapsed years ago were it not for the 'brown envelope' providing farm subsidies.

"There is no evidence of any other industry getting treated this way."

But farming, he believes, is essential and that a debt needs to be paid to keep the food chain going.

Farm Lives looks at the romantic attachment farming families have for the land but it also shows an industry which is struggling to improve its public relations.

"Farmers earned an image as complainers at the wrong time. Now few people want to listen to them," says Webster.

But despite uncovering a lot of unhappiness, the producer of Farm Lives admits that he would still be tempted by the lifestyle "if there was money to be made".