Farm Center joins multi-state effort to address mental health woes

A state department’s Farm Center has joined a 12-state program to mitigate farm stress and suicide among farmers and other agricultural workers.

The center, which is facilitated through the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, will provide education, resources and support.

The effort is regionally led by the University of Illinois and Illinois Extension and is supported by the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network.

The USDA has provided a $7.2 million grant to fund the project. It will be used over several years to address rising rates of mental health struggles and suicide in agriculture. Wisconsin alone will receive more than $400,000 to help beleaguered farmers and farming businesses.

With assistance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, the center will create farmer focus groups, develop mental health provider training and support other activities focusedon mental health.

“We are excited to join UW-Madison’s Division of Extension in this unique collaboration to help farmers and their families overcome mental health-related challenges,” said Jayne Krull, director of the DATCP’s Wisconsin Farm Center, in a statement. “Although the Farm Center offers many services designed to help farmers resolve a variety of challenges, we’ve been getting more and more calls from farmers in distress, and we continue to seek funding and resources to address this growing need.”

Mental health struggles have only worsened amid coronavirus, said Joy Kirkpatrick, an outreach specialist with the UW Center for Dairy Profitability.

“Low prices and uncertainty for many primary farm and food products over the last five years have created hardship and stress for many in rural communities, and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has only compounded those stress levels,” she said.