Battling unexpected weather conditions, farm equipment repairs and excessive workloads are just a few stress factors experienced by farmers and ranchers in the United States.
USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN) Program supports community-based outreach education to improve mental health outcomes for individual and families in rural communities.
In FY21, NIFA announced an investment of nearly $25 million for 50 grants supporting FRSAN State Department of Agriculture (SDA) projects.
The funded projects must initiate, expand or sustain programs that provide professional agricultural behavioral health counseling and referral for other forms of assistance as necessary through farm telephone helplines and websites; training programs and workshops; support groups; and outreach services and activities.
FRSAN SDA Impacts
Virginia’s State Department of Agriculture program launched the AgriStress Helpline, a comprehensive agricultural hotline to provide mental health crisis response. The free helpline is available 24/7. The hotline has the ability to respond in 160 languages, in addition to English. Staffed by mental health professionals trained to respond appropriately to agricultural communities, this helpline focuses on mental wellbeing for agricultural communities one call at a time. Since the launch in March 2022, the AgriStress Helpline has received calls from 39 callers who reached out for information/referral only and 13 calls were for emotional support/crisis.
The Idaho State Department of Agriculture FRSAN is working to increase producers’ ability to mitigate farm stress and decrease the stigma around mental health. The state’s program held a farm financial management training workshops for 60 producers. A succession planning workshop with students at the University of Idaho’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences was held for 42 students. The workshop focused on educating college students about succession planning, giving them tips and advice as they as they learn on and off the farm. To help provide farm stress management training for communities, the Idaho Farm and Ranch Center contracted and worked with the University of Idaho Extension to provide farm stress workshops targeting farmers and ranchers. Two workshops were held in Twin Falls, Idaho and in Pocatello, Idaho. The second workshop was split into two classes— one that was taught in English and the other in Spanish. There were 18 participants in the English class and 71 in the Spanish class.
The North Dakota State Department of Agriculture used funds to develop and supply resources, offer educational programs, facilitate stress assistance efforts and build partnerships to address the topic of farm and ranch stress. Crisis line services provided referral services, in partnership with North Dakota’s FirstLink. From September 2021 through March 2023, FirstLink provided more than 1,100 direct counseling sessions for stressed rural populations. Farm stress outreach programs from September 2021 through July 2023 helped more than 3,510 individuals via online or in-person suicide prevention programs.
The Massachusetts State Department of Agriculture is working to address mental health and wellness gaps that exist within the state and expand the availability of resources to farmers, state staff, service providers and partner organizations. The target audience includes farm owners, farm managers, farmworkers, farm family members and various underserved farm community members. The program worked with 14 agriculture focused organizations statewide in next step efforts to develop a peer-to-peer support network. The in-person and online peer support training began in January 2023, and more than 100 people participated in four in-person trainings. The trainings were designed to enable attendees to function as peer supports, helping the trainees recognize farmer stress, listen and communicate effectively with a non-judgmental approach, de-escalation skills and have the ability to effectively refer available resources.