WASHINGTON, D.C. — Officials representing various USDA agencies recently discussed the challenges faced by farmers and ranchers in dealing with mental health and stress.

Suicide rates have been increasing and it is now one of the top 10 leading causes of premature death in the United States, noted Dr. Jewel Bronaugh, deputy USDA secretary. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, as industries, have the third largest suicide rate among males.

“The reality is that farming is a demanding, a physically demanding and dangerous occupation,” Bronaugh explained. “When you think about the challenges that our farmers and ranchers face – the volatility of weather and weather events, economic uncertainty and even social isolation, and the fact that many farmers and ranchers work 365 days of the year without vacation – it can create a lot of stress.”

Producers who farm land that has been in their family for generations may feel a responsibility and pressure to keep the operation successful, she said. Stress may also lead to more farm accidents and problems with physical health, Bronaugh added.

“Over the past years, we’ve received calls from producers who have lost their market due to the pandemic or they lost a crop due to a natural disaster or both,” she said. 

The USDA session was livestreamed May 20 in observance of Mental Health Awareness Month.

Zach Ducheneaux, administrator for the USDA’s Farm Service Agency, said in most cases, farmer stress and mental health can boil down to economics.

“In all my travels around the country, working with farmers and ranchers, I’ve never once heard them lament about the fact that the cow wouldn’t go through the gate or they had the flat tire on the tractor or they needed to run to town to get parts,” he said. “It always comes down to that economic bottom line. The reality is, 89 percent of our producers make 50 percent or more of their income off the farm. No more than 14 cents of the food dollar gets back to the farm gate.”

USDA is trying to create more and better markets and build a better financial safety net for farmers, he stated.

Stress and mental health concerns – and a lack of access to services – not only impact farmers and ranchers, but the communities in which they live, said Xochitl Torres Small, under secretary for rural development.

“Rural people across the country are struggling to access quality care and it’s a matter of life and death,” she noted. “More than 60 percent of rural Americans live in a mental health desert. As farmers and ranchers and other rural people go through these stress and mental health challenges, not being able to access these services is a real challenge. When rural America thrives, all of America thrives. When rural America struggles, all of America struggles.”

Richard Ball, president of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, said while we all understand what physical health should look like, understanding mental health is a little more tricky.

“I think as we look at elevating the idea of nutrition security to food security, equating mental health to a higher level is also very important,” he pointed out. “The stakes in rural communities around agriculture are higher than they’ve ever been. The expectations are extremely high and the pressure on our farms to perform at a high level everyday goes on.”

The speakers cited several barriers to improving rural mental health and farm stress, including the farm finance system, corporations caring more about their bottom lines than they do about producers, the societal stigma attached to those seeking help, and a lack of providers in rural areas.

“At the center of the national mental health crisis is the reality that there’s a severe shortage of behavioral health providers,” Bronaugh explained. “You look at the statistics – more than a third of Americans live in what we call a designated mental health professional shortage area. That means there’s a community that has fewer mental health providers than the minimum of their level of the population would actually need. There’s not enough of these providers there.”

As for solutions and what USDA and other agencies can do to help, Bronaugh said funding was made available in the 2018 farm bill to allow the cooperative extension service, tribal partners and non-governmental organizations to provide the support needed to make the challenges of mental health and stress more manageable for farmers and their families. Funding was also provided as a part of the American Rescue Plan, she said.

Training USDA employees to recognize stress and mental health problems in the people they serve is also a key, the speakers said.

USDA is working to streamline the process farmers and ranchers go through when visiting a USDA office, Ducheneaux said. Making the process of getting assistance  easier will free up time for other conversations between the producer and USDA employees, he said.

“It’s going to give (producers) a little peace of mind, in the back of their mind, to help deal with all of the real stressors in their life that they’ve got to deal with,” Ducheneaux explained.