This story was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful
For almost four decades, Dorothy and Don Harms tethered their lives to the needs of their dairy cows. Twice daily milking. Seasonal races to plant and harvest corn and alfalfa for feed. The fourth generation in his family to run the Reedsburg, Wisconsin, dairy farm, Don Harms knew each of their 130 cows by name. For many people who work in agriculture, Dorothy Harms says, farming is part of their identity. “It’s not their job,” she says. “It’s who they are.”
But the grueling schedule took a toll, so they gradually transitioned, launching a farm-stay tourism business, switching to beef cattle, and selling off their dairy herd little by little until they parted with the last 25 cows five years ago. In the weeks that followed, the couple grieved. Dorothy Harms’ body, so used to hard but rewarding work, yearned to go to the barn. Her husband struggled with anxiety and self-medicated with alcohol. “It was not an easy year,” she says.
Around the same time, another farmer in their community, a close friend of the Harmses, took his own life. As the community rallied around his family, another farmer shared candidly how he had struggled with suicidal thoughts. At one of those community gatherings, Dorothy Harms learned about an opportunity to try counseling with a voucher from the Wisconsin agriculture department, and the couple found the experience somewhat helpful for processing their emotions. In the agricultural town of Reedsburg, the subject of mental health, so often kept private, was suddenly in the spotlight.
The conversations led people in this area of south-central Wisconsin to start the Farmer Angel Network, an organization that connects farm industry professionals and their families with mental health resources. The group builds a sense of community through events like drive-in movie nights and trains health providers to better understand agriculture’s unique pressures. Dorothy Harms, co-founder and board president, says the network is a resource that people know they can turn to if they need help. “There’s so much isolation, oftentimes, in farming,” she says. “By having an opportunity for fellowship and people getting to share what’s going on, it just opens the doors for possible further discussion, deeper discussion.”
Farmers’ livelihoods are shaped by many factors beyond their control, from fluctuations in global markets to extreme weather that can derail an entire growing season. These stressors are contributing to a mental health crisis in agriculture. The suicide rate among male farmers and ranchers in the US is about 60 percent higher than that of all working-age men, and farmers have higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicide risk than the general population.
Amid this crisis, efforts are growing to break down stigma and improve access to mental health supports. Crisis hotlines and teletherapy are working alongside grassroots initiatives, like the Farmer Angel Network, to open conversations about mental health among farmers and neighbors.
“What we’re trying to do is acknowledge that there’s a spectrum of need and comfort,” says Josie Rudolphi, an assistant professor and extension specialist with the University of Illinois who has researched farm stress. “We’re trying to provide a menu of resources along that spectrum.”
For many farmers, business is personal. On family-run farms, there’s often no clear separation between work and home life, according to Remington Rice, who leads Michigan State University Extension’s Managing Farm Stress project. He grew up on his family’s cattle farm, where his dad can still see the cows from his bedroom window. “Agriculture can be more a way of life than a nine-to-five job,” he says.
This makes the unique stresses of farming difficult to compartmentalize, Rice says. Those uncertainties are significant: Anything from a late-season frost to a shift in global commodity markets can affect the farm’s financial security.
