Growing Despair on US Farms
In early March, before Texas, the rest of the country, and the whole world began to fully grapple with the implications of COVID-19, USA Today published a deeply personal article highlighting increased rates of suicide among farmers. As many of us know, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this number spike. Painful memories of the 1980s farm crisis immediately come to mind, but suicide is now twice as high among farmers as it was then. What we’re witnessing is a trend – one that scares me deeply.
Here’s what we know:
Farmers produce nearly all of the food we eat. Without them, our entire country would go hungry. They’re also some of the smartest, kindest, and most resourceful people you’ll ever know. They take care of their families, their community, their crops, and their livestock. You’ll often hear of farmers referred to as “the backbone” of this country. It’s hard to think of them as anything less.
They also contribute more than $130 billion to the U.S. GDP each year.
Why, then, has the CDC found that these are the same people who, compared to other professions, are most likely to die by suicide?
Our farmers are struggling in ways much of America can’t imagine or simply hasn’t considered. This country still has extremely idyllic impressions about what farming looks like and those images seem hard to shake. Who isn’t more comfortable imagining a smiling dairy farmer milking a happy cow than considering a husband and wife at the kitchen table deciding which cows, acres, or pieces of equipment to sell in order to pay the mortgage?
Those very real financial pressures are just one of the factors behind the stress our agricultural communities are dealing with. In order to produce more, farmers in the U.S. have borrowed money and invested it into their operations. But climate change, trade wars, and falling commodity prices have left them perpetually upside down with few – if any – feasible ways of recovering. Debt, year after year, season after season, is crushing the very people we depend on to eat. In too many cases, suicide seems like the only way to escape the pressure.
That pressure is frequently felt strongest by the farmers who are carrying on a tradition and way of life. The farms that dot our landscape are more than just a collection of acreage, fences, and buildings – they’re legacies. The dirt under many farmers’ boots belonged to their father and his father – men who pushed through the hard times and lived to tell about it. Which leaves growing numbers of today’s farmers wondering why they can’t do the same. When feelings of stress mix with a sense of inadequacy, the outcome can be deadly.
For farmers, especially the men like me, talking about our feelings – the dreaded f-word – is difficult. It doesn’t come easy for us, and the work of farming – often alone and unseen – only adds to the sense of isolation. The stories they tell themselves in those dark moments, especially when those stories devalue their worth as members of a family, a tradition, or a community, can and do plant seeds of despair. The link between modern farming practices – which includes more work, lower returns, and higher debt than ever – and suicide is impossible to miss. For families impacted, there’s no denying it. We must acknowledge it.
But here’s something else we know:
It doesn’t have to be this way. The drivers, problems, and feelings lurking below the statistics are complex and multi-faceted, but the deaths are preventable. Like a tumor that only grows bigger untreated, the grief, pain, and frustration that many farmers are shouldering will not get better on its own. We owe it to our agricultural communities to talk about this, to destigmatize the perception of failure, and to champion resources – especially in hard to reach rural areas – as much as possible. Farmers need to talk to someone that understands them.
Yes, I know this doesn’t match the image someone else may have constructed for what a farmer is supposed to look like. That image hasn’t served farmers well. If anything it’s held them back. It’s kept too many farmers from asking for help. As it turns out, the people who care for their livestock and tend to the needs of their crops have needs of their own.
Here’s my bit of encouragement: If you know a farmer personally, ask them how they’re doing. Then listen, and I mean really listen. Create a safe space for sharing. Invite them over for a meal and get to know what their day-to-day life looks like. Be someone – if you’re not already – that they can trust. Farmers need friends.
If your only exposure to this group is at your local farmers market, don’t worry – you can still make a difference. Get to know the folks you’re buying from. Relationships can be built over baskets of strawberries and ears of corn. Let them know you appreciate them, that you understand the weather, the economy, and a global pandemic make a hard job even harder. It will mean the world to them.
Ultimately, each of us has the ability to support our local agricultural community with the money we’re already spending. It may require bypassing the national or regional supermarket we’re accustomed to, but that’s a small price to pay, right? They’ll always have shoppers. In the meantime, put your money where your heart is.
This, as you know, is the fundamental work of TexasRealFood: connecting us to each other, to better ways of living and eating, and to greater health and sustainability. It’s a culture – one that, I believe, has the ability to save lives. That’s why we’re committed to helping farmers break free from industrial agriculture and the harm it causes. There’s a better way to make a living.
We need farmers and time after time they show up for us. Now, more than ever before, farmers need us. The question is will we show up for them?
