RD201904

“People just did not deal with re-
vealing their tender feelings. They felt
like failures,” he says.
During the height of the farm cri-
sis, telephone hotlines were started
in most agricultural states. Every state
that had a hotline reported a signifi-
cant drop in the number of farming-
related suicides.
In 1999, Mike joined an organization
called Sowing Seeds of Hope (SSOH),
which referred farmers to affordable
behavioral health services. In 2001,

he became the director. For 14 years,
until its federal funding ended, SSOH
fielded more than 250,000 calls from
farmers, trained more than 10,000
rural behavioral-health professionals,
and provided vouchers for counseling
and other resources to some 100,000
farm families. The program became
the model for the nationwide Farm
and Ranch Stress Assistance Network
(FRSAN), which was approved as part
of the 2008 U.S. Farm Bill but was
never funded.
Mike continued to help farmers
on his own and is now director of
AgriWellness, a nonprofit organiza-
tion that offers behavioral health ser-
vices in rural areas. The small outfit

is trying to fill a big void. Currently

80  percent of rural residents live in

areas with a shortage of mental health

professionals. Farm Aid, the organiza-

tion founded in response to the 1980s

farm crisis, reported a 30 percent in-

crease in calls to its farmer hotline in

2018 over the year before. Hope may

be on the horizon, though, as the 2018

Farm Bill included $10 million in an-

nual funding for FRSAN through 2023.

W

ill that be enough? Un-

fortunately, today’s bleak

agricultural economy looks

very much like a new farm crisis.

Income for U.S. farmers has declined

nearly 50 percent since 2013 and is at

its lowest level since 2002, according

to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

More than half of farmers lose money,

and most have second jobs. Some

farmers simply can’t afford to keep

farming; more than 600 Wisconsin

dairy farms shut down last year.

Dr. Nancy Zidek, who practices fam-

ily medicine in Onaga, Kansas, sees

behavioral-health issues frequently in

her patients: “The grain prices are low.

The gas prices are high. Farmers feel

the strain of ‘I’ve got to get this stuff

in the field. But if I can’t sell it, I can’t

pay for next year’s crop. I can’t pay my

loans at the bank off.’ And that impacts

the rest of us in a small community,

because if the farmers can’t come into

town to purchase from the grocery

store, the hardware store, the phar-

macy, then those people also struggle.”

WITH INCOME DOWN

NEARLY 50 PERCENT,

MORE THAN HALF OF

FARMERS LOSE MONEY.

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National Interest