7th generation farmer Emma Alexander and her family live in southwest Missouri. Their family farm in Rogersville was recognized as Missouri century farm in 2020, which means it's been in the same family for more than 100 years.
Emma and her 16-year-old son Lucas recently sat down and spoke about how farming and its challenges benefit their mental health and well-being.
For the month of May, we're focusing on the health of farmers and farming families.
Emma Alexander: What kind of notes do you have over there?
Lucas Alexander: I put that – for us anyways – that the challenges of the farm keep our minds sharp. When we're not working, we get bored, or at least I do.
So, the challenges that I experience on the farm caused me to think and problem solve, and even though they might become stressful at times, they exercise my brain.
Emma Alexander: Unfortunately, since the mental health conversation has begun, it almost immediately triggers a negative connotation because in a lot of cases the very next word that comes after that is “crisis.”
I think that we should flip the script on that and change our perspective because I believe that there's way more good mental health – like Lucas described in agriculture – than bad.
Things get overwhelming. People get overwhelmed. We hear stories, sad stories of things that families end up dealing with.
I'm not saying that it's not there – people who have become overwhelmed need support. They need help.
But generally, I think that we should change our perspective to be more positive in looking at the mental health aspects.
Farming is hard – it's physically hard. It's emotionally hard. We deal with things that we can't control, like weather and markets. These things are all true.
Those things were all true for my grandparents, and while they may have had bad days, I have not heard any stories nor in my lifetime did I see them have poor mental health.
They had all the same struggles that we have. In fact, we have more technology. Farming tasks have never been as easy as they are today, and yet the profession is still hard. It's still hard work.
What has changed, I believe, is it is hard to earn a living farming, and that is different than it was in our grandparents day.
So, how do you think we should handle things that are out of our control?
Lucas Alexander: Improvise a solution that works the best that you can do, and the best that you can do is the best you can do and do your best to move on past that.
If the cattle market sucks – you just won't be able to get a new tractor this year. Fuel prices are high? Well, just have to bite down and buy the fuel that you need. Don't burn any more than necessary, but you have to have it.
It takes money to make money. Sometimes finding the money that you need is a little harder, but other times it's just that's the way it is. It's gonna and, in fact, all the time – it's just that's the way it is.
You're gonna have to find ways to ways to get past it.
