Mental stress is difficult in agriculture

High Plains farmers and ranchers face more challenges than most any other industry.

This time of year, wheat farmers hope that Mother Nature can put the final touches on a promising wheat crop as they fine-tune their harvesting equipment. They are also in the stretch run of soybean and sorghum planting. Ranchers continue to hope that wet weather will continue to improve pastures and add water to ponds that will support cattle operations.

None of those challenges are unknown; they have been a part of the rural scene for multiple generations. Today’s news adds more pressure. Grain farmers are seeing prices below breakeven benchmarks.

All those stressors are raising awareness about mental health that many believe has reached a crisis level.

Recently, U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, a doctor and a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, participated in a recently released documentary called Out of the Shadows, which showcases the mental health crisis that is plaguing rural America.

Specifically, the data shows that:

• The suicide rate has increased 46% in rural America in the last 20 years. 
• U.S. farmers are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population, according to the National Rural Health Association.  
• 65% of rural counties across the U.S. don’t have a single psychiatrist. 
• 60% of farmers meet the accepted medical criteria for depression.
• Agriculture has the fourth highest suicide rate by industry.

Excerpts from the documentary showed the struggles of farmers and those who try to reach them. Marshall said farmers face higher input costs and interest rates and even with the best safety practices, America loses a farmer nearly once a day because of a farm-related accident and suicide also claims a farmer almost every day.

Farmers also face pressure from a legacy standpoint, he said, where they have had to borrow from other family members to keep going. That puts a lot of pressure to keep the family farm going and with circumstances they may not be able to control that can lead to many problems.

Also, the rural nature of the industry itself puts farmers and ranchers many miles away from where they can get care, Marshall said. He’d like to see a greater network developed.

“…It’s just gone unrecognized, untreated for too long. It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s help out there. I just think the stress is so immense right now, on farmers. They need a word of encouragement, and that’s my job. My job is to be out there and be a message of hope.”

Farmers and ranchers and their families are in it for the long haul, and every one of them makes a difference in feeding a hungry world whose livelihood depends on a healthy producer.

The stress is not known. Farmers and ranchers are private and work in an environment where they spend many hours working by themselves and in remote areas.

The mental health crisis is very real and Congress and each state in the High Plains needs to put a higher priority on allocating resources so that farm families and residents of their communities they live in can get help before it is too late. In the rural communities we live in, everyone is important, and we have a duty to make a difference.

Dave Bergmeier can be reached at 620-227-1822 or [email protected].