The drought sweeping through the Midwest has forced many farmers to make tough operational decisions against their wishes. For Macey Hurst, a cattle farmer outside of Jefferson City, that meant cutting a third of her herd because of dry pastures and a lack of hay.
These difficult decisions that often are out of farmers’ control can lead to mental health concerns.
On the day Hurst brought her cattle to the market, she ended up taking the afternoon off of work to prioritize her mental health.
“We have an emotional attachment to those animals and we've so often made sacrifices to make sure they're taken care of,” Hurst said. “So seeing them go and not having another option was pretty difficult.”
Stressors, including increasingly extreme weather, financing and familial struggles, are associated with farmer anxiety and depression. The stress accompanying farm life can be exacerbated by a lack of access to health care, stigma surrounding mental health support and the potential isolation in rural areas.
Close to 40% of the farmer population experienced at least mild symptoms of anxiety or depression in a survey of Illinois farmers in 2021 and 2022. In comparison, around 17% to 20% of the general population experiences at least mild symptoms of anxiety or depression. The survey was completed by Josie Rudolphi, an assistant professor for agricultural safety and health at the University of Illinois.
Additionally, rural suicide rates in Missouri are 18% higher than those in non-rural areas, according to a Missouri Hospital Association report.
Emma Alexander, a farmer from Rogersville, is an advocate for farmer mental health because she sees the many stressors agriculturists face as a seventh generation agriculturist. She raises goats, pigs and cows on her family farm.
“It's not that (farming communities) don't have the mental fortitude to overcome those challenges,” Alexander said. “It just takes time to work through those and stay connected with your network and your support system.”
Stressors
A lot of factors in a farmer's profit and success are out of their control, including weather and global market prices. These factors can be stressful for farmers.
“We're subject to the markets,” Hurst said. “Whenever your entire livelihood is essentially out of your hands, it can be hard to wake up and want to do the same thing the next day.”
Extreme weather, like droughts, flooding or natural disasters, are stressors for farmers and are associated with symptoms of anxiety and depression, Rudolphi said.
Hurst remembers one Christmas when her family spent the entire day feeding the cattle because it snowed on Christmas Eve. While the snow was not an instance of extreme weather impacting the farm, it is an example of how uncontrollable factors impact farmers' personal lives.
The drought sweeping throughout the state is a weather stressor on the mental health of farmers in the Midwest. It has resulted in poor crop conditions and potentially lower profits for Missouri farmers. Dry pastures and low hay levels forced many cattle farmers, like Hurst, to cut down on their herds.
“Whenever something you love so much and are so passionate about kind of crumbles before your eyes or fails or isn't successful, then you take that very personally,” Hurst said. “It can affect you on a mental level as well as a physical level and a financial level which all just accumulates.”
Farm finances can also be an additional source of stress because of high interest rates and a predicted decrease in farm income in Missouri. One reason finances are a stressor for farmers is because commodity prices are often out of the hands of farmers.
“Farm finances is consistently cited as a major source of stress, and consistently associated with those symptoms of anxiety and depression,” Rudolphi said. “We know that agriculture is financially complicated. We often don't set the price for our product.”
Many Missouri farmers hope to pass their farm on to future generations. But a drought impacting crop quality or high interest rates that stop farmers from buying new equipment makes it harder for them to turn a profit to keep the farm in operation.
Younger generations are leaving the rural towns more frequently and not staying on the farm, said Dave Dillon, the vice president of public and media relations at Missouri Hospital Association. Many farmers have had to navigate selling their farm to another business or closing completely. In the last 20 years, thousands of farms across the state have closed or consolidated, he said.
“The whole texture of rural communities over the course of the last couple of generations has changed significantly,” Dillon said. “These places have gotten smaller. Because of the nature of economics, rural places have gotten poorer, or the divide between those that are well off and poor has gotten larger. All of these things have influenced health and behavioral health.”
Barriers to care
While farmers face a variety of economic and personal stressors on the farm, those difficult factors can be exacerbated by barriers that make it difficult for people to access behavioral care and treatment.
Rural health care deserts make it harder for farmers to connect with the resources they need. A third of rural hospitals in the state are at risk of closing as of July, according to a recent report from the Center for Healthcare Quality & Payment Reform. Additionally, 45 rural counties in the state are without a general acute care hospital, according to Missouri’s Office of Rural Health.
“We have significant health care challenges that are in rural places that are often even more pronounced than they are in urban and suburban areas,” Dillon said.
Hurst said that farmers usually work from sunrise to
“Whenever something you love so much and are so passionate about kind of crumbles before your eyes or fails or isn't successful, then you take that very personally.”Macey Hurst
sunset, making it even harder for farmers to get care when they have to drive a far distance.
There is also a stigma for farmers looking to seek behavioral health care, like therapy, Dillon said. Farmers may feel embarrassed or ashamed to be seen needing help in their rural communities.
“If everybody knows what your truck looks like and there is a behavioral health provider and you're parked out in front of it, you're no longer really anonymous,” Dillon said. “While I think that every year that behavioral health challenges are less stigmatized, it's still, especially in a part of Missouri that is very proud of its fierce independence and ability to weather storms, a bigger challenge.”
Hurst calls the difficulty many male farmers have in expressing emotions “cowboy culture.”
“There are so many factors that make being an agriculturist so heavy,” Hurst said. “It's so important that we address those things. If we have emotions connected to them, like almost all producers I know do, then it's okay to have those emotions, to work through them, to acknowledge them.”
Potential solutions
If farmers work alone and don’t have coworkers to lean on during a stressful day, loneliness and isolation can exacerbate anxiety and depression symptoms, Rudolphi said.
Alexander thinks it is important for farmers to find others to discuss problems they run into and build a network of support with one another by getting involved with different farm organizations across the state.
“I don't think it is for lack of community or support, or friendship or relationships within our vocation,” Alexander said. “I don't think that's it at all. I really think when you see struggles on the farm, it is just a reflection of so many more things that farmers have to think about.”
Talking about stressors with other farmers could also help reduce stigma surrounding mental health. Continued conversations, interpersonally and at agriculture conferences, could normalize behavioral health care for farmers, Rudolphi said.
However, Rudolphi also emphasized the importance of meeting farmers where they are at and helping them find solutions while they may still feel nervous about receiving care. One solution Dillon and Rudolphi proposed is telehealth services.
Telehealth care, while it does not fill in all of the care gaps, allows farmers to find care from their home without being recognized in town. Some farmers may have difficulty accessing these services, but Dillon said the pandemic helped accelerate the normalization of telehealth services for older generations.
The state created the AgriStress Help hotline in 2022. It's specifically for farmers and rural communities looking for mental health support. Other Missouri-specific educational and hotline resources can be found at farmstress.org.
The helpline is available by call or text at 833-897-2474, but individuals with emergency health concerns should call 911.
More information
The national suicide and crisis lifeline is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
