LANSING, Mich. – The Michigan Dept. of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) announced it has awarded a one-time stress grant to Michigan State University (MSU) and Easterseals Michigan to expand services to farmers and others in agriculture related occupations.

“While the agricultural industry in Michigan continues to create new economic opportunities for food and agricultural businesses, we recognize the growing need for updated resources and educational programs that will help support the mental health of our farmers and their families,” said MDARD Director Gary McDowell. “At MDARD, we not only want to support economic development for businesses, but Michiganders who work so hard in our industry day after day.”

Among other things, the program will help MSU extension and Easterseals fund their Agrability program, a longstanding effort to help disabled farmers continue to farm, for example, by providing assistive technology so that farmers can get into and out of a tractor or combine. “The grant helps build out our partnership with Easterseals, especially our work on the Agrability program,” said Ron Bates, director of the Agriculture and Agribusiness Institute at MSU extension. “The Easterseals program is to help support farmers with physical disabilities, but also farmers with mental health problems. The grant is providing us with options, including teletherapy and, overall with our farm stress program. It will also help Easterseals build out its mental health program.”

MSU extension also has a relationship with Pinerest, a mental health facility in the Grand Rapids area that provides counseling, urgent care for people with mental health crisis as well as an inpatient program. Bates explained that MSU extension has had a farm stress program for the last five years. It is also planning to expand access to teletherapy services for farmers and others involved in agricultural occupations. The grant will also help extension beef up its longstanding Telfarm program, a program started in 1928 to help farm businesses with financial recordkeeping. Over the decades Telfarm has added computer applications and services to its repertoire, in addition to recordkeeping. Perennial stressors for farmers include loss of a farm, farm consolidation as well as farm succession issues.

Easterseals Michigan CEO Brent Wirth said his organization has been working with MSU extension for years on Agrability. “What we’ve been finding is that farmers have been experiencing a lot of stress and mental health issues,” Wirth said. “We aim to do our best to serve the whole person. There’s definitely an increase in mental health issues with farmers. Suicide is on the increase with farmers over the past 20 years, as per the Centers for Disease Control.” The grant is for a 24 month period, but Wirth explained Easterseals will try and “promote funding beyond that, too.” He described the Easterseals effort as complementing what MSU extension is doing. His focus is on behavioral health, through teletherapy, which means counseling via computer conferencing and telephone.

 “It’s about awareness, as well as actual access, just knowing where to go and making it actually available to people is what’s important,” Wirth said. “I really hope this makes a difference.”