Bad weather can be stressful, but perhaps even more so if it has the ability to wipe out a season of work, as it can in agriculture. Now, a new University of Missouri study is looking into how weather affects farmer mental health and well-being.
Researchers are conducting interviews with about 40 Midwestern farmers to find out how navigating severe weather and a changing climate affects their health.
Jennifer First is an assistant professor in the College of Health Sciences and the School of Social Work at the University of Missouri and is leading the project.
“We're asking them about weather impacts and climate impacts on, of course, their agricultural production, but then also over time how that has impacted mental health or stress,” she said.
First’s work also examines the aftermath of major storms on a community scale. She previously examined the mental health impact of the Joplin tornado.
“We have individual trauma that people kind of experience on a daily basis, but communities can go through events where they all experience something collectively,” she said.
First said more farmers today struggle with depression, anxiety and PTSD and the number who take their own lives is climbing. The new interviews and a survey aim to identify risk factors for farmers.
Lack of control
J Arbuckle is an Iowa State University rural sociologist who’s been surveying farmers about their economic and environmental conditions for years through the annual Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll.
Arbuckle said weather is one more element in their occupation farmers have little say over — in addition to commodity and input prices.
“When a lot of things are outside of your control, it can be stressful, and stress then can increase and have a big impact on mental health,” he said.
In a 2020 poll, Arbuckle asked farmers if they had the financial capacity to deal with weather-related threats — 30% said they didn’t and another 35% were uncertain.
Among the farmers Arbuckle surveys, many note that they’d been negatively impacted by climate conditions such as drought in recent years.
“When there's drought and the water turns off, that's probably the most terrifying thing for a farmer,” Arbuckle said.
In the annual polls, weather-related items still ranked lower as a stressor for farmers than economic factors such as increased dependence on inputs like fertilizer and herbicides, financial stress from fluctuating crop and livestock prices and the decline in the number of farms.
