Farmer Suicide Prevention

“Due to the limited availability of mental health providers, it is even more critical that robust community-based networks be supported and developed so that community members, including the farming community, gain the confidence to support each other through times of mental health challenge.”

– Wally Orzechowski, Executive Director of SWCAP

At a Glance

The crisis of farmer suicide in Wisconsin cannot be ignored. In 2015, the rate of suicide for farmers was at least two and a half times that of the suicide rate of the general population. This crisis was grounded in the correlation between financial instability, farm foreclosures, high stress, and rates of suicide. Though this needed to be addressed, in southwestern Wisconsin, there was a lack of access to adequate mental health care for farmers. Effective targeted outreach for mental health support was needed to successfully engage members of the farming community in mental health education and interventions in order to improve mental health outcomes for farmers and address the crisis of farmer suicide.

This project developed a comprehensive set of community-based education and intervention tools that was integrated into the farming community to address the immediate crisis of suicide and support the overall mental health of farmers. The grant team was successful in providing direct training in suicide and crisis prevention to farmers and their communities, skill building and stress management with farmers, and coordinating with a network of agri-business leaders. The success of this project has resulted in an additional grant to extend and expand this work.

The Challenge

Mental health initiatives implemented in southwestern Wisconsin were successful in reaching members of the general public. However, Southwestern Wisconsin Community Action Program (SWCAP) recognized that farmers, who were at greater risk for suicide than the general public, were not making use of these initiatives. Farm bankruptcies in Wisconsin were the highest in the nation, with dairy farms being especially susceptible to foreclosures. Farmers were experiencing a high level of stress, but lacked access to adequate mental healthcare. Targeted outreach to successfully engage members of the farming community was needed in order to address the crisis of farmer suicide improve mental health outcomes for farmers.

Project Goals

The goal of this project was to develop a comprehensive set of community-based education and intervention tools to integrate into the farming community to address the immediate crisis of suicide and support the overall mental health of farmers. The grantees also sought to determine whether targeted outreach could successfully engage members of the farming community and improve mental health outcomes for farmers.

Results

The grantees accomplished many of their intended outcomes for this project. They provided four Stronger Together sessions (UW—Extension, Richland County speakers’ series pilot) and four QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) sessions, recorded a PowerPoint on suicide prevention information for Wisconsin Farm Bureau members and recorded a virtual training on suicide awareness to provide direct training in suicide and crisis prevention to farmers and their communities. In order to successfully reach farmers, the grantees initiated skill building through the Stronger Together speakers’ series and engaged and networked with many different agricultural businesses and agriculture professionals. In addition to what the grant team originally planned, they developed a new collaborative project with a doctoral nurse practitioner to develop a farmer wellness website that will be fully operational in early 2021.

Looking to the Future

Due to the success of this project, the grantees have applied for and received a WPP Community Impact Grant of $1 million over five years to build upon their work. Many of the strategies piloted in this project, like the Stronger Together sessions, will be replicated in all five counties of Iowa, Lafayette, Grant, Green, and Richland. The team is training a core group of people to deliver safeTALK sessions in communities. This is an evidence-based suicide awareness and intervention model. Based on conversations with physicians in their service area, the grant team learned that there is a need to provide additional training to physicians about farming culture, stressors unique to farmers, and how farm culture can be a barrier that keeps farmers from seeking out medical and mental health care. Therefore, they will develop training, workshops, and educational curricula for physicians and medical students who work in rural areas about farm culture and farmer-specific mental health risk and protective factors.

Lasting Impact

Through farmer listening sessions, the grantees gained a key understanding about how farmers frame stress, the language they are comfortable using to describe mental health challenges, and people from whom they are interested in receiving education and support. They also gathered important information regarding the challenges presently operating across agricultural sectors and learned about the strategies already in use from potential community partners, agricultural leaders, and other stakeholders. This valuable insight provided a basis for ongoing collaborations and a clearer picture of how to create aligned strategies without duplicating work already underway by others.

Because of the grantees’ work with farmers through this grant, SWCAP was asked by Wisconsin DHS/WISCAP to run the farmer-specific portion of the FEMA-funded, 9-month Project Recovery grant. This grant provides emotional support, stress management education, and resource navigation to farmers and farmworkers statewide who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The grantees said it was an honor to have their work recognized in this way. SWCAP also has broad community engagement in support of this project, aligned with its mission to improve the lives all people living in southwestern Wisconsin.