Tough economic times are hard on farmers’ mental health

'The problem with farmers is that you can't advise them to take a vacation to a less-stressful job.”

That's the opinion of David Brown, a behavioral health specialist with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. Brown was addressing the fact that farmers have been under tremendous stress in the past few years, and yet, getting out from under that burden is no small task.

'For many, the farm has been in their family for generations, so there's a lot of pressure on them. They feel the weight of potentially losing the land,” Brown said.

To make matters worse, so many of the stressors farmers face are outside of their control: weather, commodity prices and machinery breakdowns.

'I can't think of another job where so much is beyond a person's control,” Brown said. 'This past year, the land prices and tariffs haven't helped, either.”

Brown said life as a farmer was going well for a number of years as commodity prices rose to historic highs throughout the decade of the 2000s. But after spiking in 2013, the prices have fallen to almost half what they were back then, and it's taken a huge toll on farmers. Margins are back to being razor-thin. If it wasn't for the money from the federal government, farmers would be in even worse shape.

'The market facilitation payments that came as a response to the tariffs with China was helpful,” Brown said. 'There is some optimism now with the proposed trade agreement with China. Things are not great, but at least there's a little bit of optimism.”

Brown said that it's difficult to generalize about how well farmers are doing, because there are two distinct kinds: those with debt and those without. Those with debt have been losing capital and equity for the past four to five years. They're going to face tough decisions about having to sell their land and/or machinery to staff afloat.

'At the same time, the farmers without debt are doing well. The market facilitation payments gave them quite a bit of money,” Brown said. 'Getting the money involved a simple sign-up, especially for those growing soybeans. In fact, that [program] was the key reason farmers had any income at all.”

Brown said there are problems on the horizon that will give farmers sleepless nights. That's especially true for farmers on the western side of the state, who are worried about additional flooding.

'Quite a few farms are still under water on that side of the state,” Brown said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has attempted to study the incidence of farmers suicide. Brown said what is known about farmers is that their suicide rate is higher than the general population, but experts aren't sure on exactly how high it is.

'In general, rural residents have higher rates of suicide and substance abuse,” Brown said. 'And rural men have exceptionally high rates of suicide, about 31 per 100,000 people compared to the general population's rate of 14 per 100,000.”

Brown said farming has a number of characteristics that lend itself to the kind of depression that leads to suicide.

'Farmers are sometimes both geographically and socially isolated, they work alone, and they face a stigma associated with getting mental health care services,” he said. 'We also know that rural parts of the country have good access to firearms.”

Farmers have the highest rate of suicide by any profession according to the CDC. The study looked at all people employed in agriculture, including farmworkers. Farmworkers have a particularly high rate of suicide. 'A farmworker is fairly low paid, and they have a tough job. Many of them are immigrants. They don't have the best benefits, and they have to work long hours. They tend to have a high rate of suicide,” Brown said.

Brown said farm managers have stress levels that are more comparable to business owners, and are not quite as high as that of farmworkers'. He said that occupations such as lumberjacking and fisheries have high rates of suicide, too.

One of the problems associated with reaching out to farmers about suicide prevention is that most are reluctant to seek help. Brown said ag professionals have figured out a way around farmers' shyness on the subject. They will hold meetings this year educating farmers on the Farm Bill. At those same meetings, farmers also will see a program on preventing suicides, the warning signs of someone on the brink, and how to intervene. Brown said this is a great way to educate farmers about suicide without making them feel like they're attending a 'suicide prevention” meeting.

'If you provided a program to farmers just on suicide prevention, nobody would attend,” he said. 'I asked a farmer friend, ‘Would you show up to a program on suicide prevention?' He said, ‘No, but I'd park a block away and see who did.'”

Brown said that even though farmers are going through a tough time, many of them have lived through periods that were even worse. For instance, the 1980s were a time when a lot of farmers left the profession because of low commodity prices, and being unable to pay their debts.

'The key difference between then and now is that, in the 1980s, interest rates were sky high,” Brown said. 'Loans for farms were difficult to pay because of the interest rates. Today, farmers at least are not struggling with high interest payments.”