Some farmers avoid seeking behavioral health care, even when needed. As last week’s column indicated, negative stigma about behavioral health care is declining among farmers as ever-more seek to be optimally healthy and productive, but there are still too many who avoid assistance.

The current era is a difficult one for many farmers in which to make a profit; it raises the specter of another farm crisis reminiscent of the 1980s. Several successive years of net losses or marginal profits by many farmers, increasing attention to farm stress issues in the media – such as a Dec. 7, 2017, article in The Guardian about the excessively high rate of farmer suicides – and the recent termination of contracts with several hundred dairy producers in the eastern United States have also raised public awareness.

Although news accounts and anecdotal testimonies aren’t sufficient to establish clear trends, there are concerns within the current Congress and several state legislatures about farming-related stress and farmer suicide. To illustrate, Washington state legislators recently established farm crisis services in response to farmer suicides, stress and opioid addiction in their underserved rural areas.

The U.S. House Agriculture Committee released proposed legislation in mid-March that would establish a Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN) and which would be administered through the USDA to assist distressed agricultural producers.

The proposed legislation is being sponsored by Reps. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), along with 14 cosponsors on both sides of the political aisle. Their proposal would amend the 2008 farm bill to reauthorize the FRSAN, but with a new title: The Stemming the Tide of Rural Economic Stress and Suicide (STRESS) Act.

Thus far, there haven’t been any changes to the proposal on the House floor, according to key Ag Committee staff members with whom I conferred as I wrote this. The U.S. Senate Ag Committee also has also proposed legislation to establish a range of behavioral health resources to support farmers in crisis.

Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Tami Baldwin (D-Wis.) sponsored the Senate legislative effort entitled FARMERS FIRST. Four additional senators, both Democrat and Republican, are cosponsors. The bill has not yet been debated on the Senate floor.

The Senate and House versions of the proposed legislation are fairly similar. They would provide $10 million for each of five years, to be administered through the USDA on a competitive grant application basis. Land-grant university extension services, state departments of agriculture and nonprofit organizations would be authorized to submit grant applications.

Individual states or two or more states could form a regional application for funds to set up farm crisis telephone/email helplines for people engaged in agriculture, to make referrals for additional services when needed and to help pay for counseling similar to what an employee assistance plan provides.

Other funded services include dissemination of information about available resources, community education workshops about financial and behavioral health matters, training of providers such as behavioral and medical professionals in culturally appropriate services and for innovative interventions that address farmer stress and suicide.

Intensive program evaluation would be undertaken by an independent entity, along with technical assistance to the successful program grantees and research that investigates causes and solutions to farm stress and suicide. The differences between the House and Senate bills are minor and can be resolved readily if Republican and Democratic officials continue to work together, and if President Trump approves the final bill.

The STRESS Act and FARMERS FIRST proposals are based on the FRSAN program that was authorized in the 2008 farm bill. Funds were requested then but not appropriated.

The original FRSAN proposal and the current House and Senate bills would implement services that were found to be effective by the nonprofit organization AgriWellness, Inc., which served seven states (Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa) from 2001-13 and which were designated as “best practices” by federal officials and the National Rural Health Assoc.

AgriWellness was funded by federal research and service grants that were obtained on a competitive basis and combined with state funds, foundation grants and contributions to maintain the AgriWellness efforts that I have described in previous “Farm and Ranch Life” columns.

Some people criticize the current farm bill proposals for behavioral health supports as a bandage on a wound rather than curing the causes of the wound. Nonetheless, agricultural behavioral health assistance is needed more than at any time since the 1980s, and will continue to be needed as an investment in healthy agricultural producers.

Several other countries are also looking into similar measures as U.S. officials are considering to assist distressed farmers. This progress seemed unreachable several years ago, but now many parts of the world consider agricultural behavioral health important, and even necessary, to have optimally functioning producers of food and materials for all people.

Next week we will look further at what makes behavioral health services effective for agricultural producers.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Dr. Mike Rosmann is a psychologist and farmer in western Iowa. Readers may contact him at mike@agbehavioralhealth.com