UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – An Iowa State University researcher who studies trauma in farmers and its impact on decision making shared some of his findings during a recent webinar.

“The meat and potatoes of what I do is trying to understand why farmers make the decisions that they do and how we can use programs, policies, education, outreach to help encourage and support farmers to grow our food, fiber and fuel more sustainably,” said Chris Morris, a postdoctoral research associate in the university’s Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. “A big part of my dissertation was looking at trauma. This is something that hadn’t really been looked at a whole lot in terms of how trauma might affect farmer decision making.”

Morris interviewed 16 farmers across Iowa who had previously indicated they had experienced such things as extreme flooding or drought, a decline in their quality of life and had negative outcomes from the transition from a more diverse to a more specialized system of agriculture.

Five behavioral health experts who had worked with farmers were also interviewed.

He discussed his findings during a May 5 Penn State University webinar on collective trauma in agriculture.

Morris asked one of the behavioral health experts what they thought trauma in agriculture looks like. “In the agricultural context, stress is the norm,” the expert explained. “Farmers are always stressed by the weather, by markets, by what’s happening in Washington. All of that stuff is normal stress. Trauma is something that threatens, for them, the existence of their farm. Trauma is interest rates being raised 20 percent or more, and they have huge debts.

“Trauma is a spring that is so wet that their calves are literally drowning in the mud. Trauma is the flood that threatens the existence of their farm or the drought that goes on so long that they can’t see the other side.”

The expert said stress is normal, but trauma is when you look at a situation and you realize you don’t know how to get out of it.

A northwest Iowa farmer Morris interviewed had fallen off a grain bin and was seriously injured.

“For me, what this had done is my emotions boil to the surface, just like a stroke victim,” the farmer said. “My grandfather had a severe stroke and for him, (after) that stroke, he’d just lose it. His tears would just flow. And he, prior to that stroke, was a very stoic individual. And I find that after this fall, that some of the darnedest things would just get me all choked up. And I thought that maybe as years went on by that would subside and it doesn’t. At least it hasn’t yet. So yeah, the trauma can induce some emotional response.”

Morris asked the farmers how any potential trauma might affect their decisions. One from northwest Iowa was a kid during the 1980s farm crisis, though he had heard about its impact from his dad.

“But like that 80s mentality is there to have, like, you can’t waste money on cover crop seed, when that money can pay debt or capitalize new assets, whatever that might be,” the farmer said. “And so I kind of had that experience of the ‘80s farm crisis impacting me also.”

A southeast Iowa farmer told Morris the impact of trauma isn’t always a negative in regard to decision making.

“We’ve implemented more of these (conservation) practices because we’ve seen examples of two inches (of rain) in 20 minutes, four inches in two hours, where unless you pretty much have sod, you’re going to lose dirt off a farm like this.” the farmer said. “Some of these farms around here have been really run down. If I have a son or daughter that wants to farm this farm and the dirt’s all in the Gulf of Mexico and then we got gullies that are four foot deep, it ain’t going to be much of a farm to farm.”

The behavioral health experts recommended increasing resources that buffer against trauma, such as trauma-informed therapy services in rural areas and communities of support for farmers to process trauma.

They also recommended that professionals who work with farmers be trained about trauma and in ways to help reduce the stigma of behavioral health issues.

Farmers told Morris they feel locked into a treadmill of production systems, and that more infrastructure is needed to support diversity in farming. They expressed a desire for reduced oligopolistic power among ag corporations. (An oligopoly is when a few companies exert significant control over a given market.)

The farmers suggested a retooling of subsidy structures, Morris added.

“The thing about farmers is that they represent a unique population that’s been exposed to these potentially traumatic events that are particular to the agricultural industry,” he said. “These are things like natural disasters like floods, droughts, tornadoes, derechos, the 1980s farm crisis, declining rural communities, chronic stress, on-farm injuries, deaths and farmer suicides.”

Morris said there are coping mechanisms people can use to help with some of the symptoms of trauma.

“On an individual level, things like self care, working to solve problems that relate directly to the trauma can be very healing, seeking social support from others, seeing a behavioral health therapist.”