WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Members of the Purdue Extension Farm Stress Team know it can be difficult to initiate a conversation with a farmer dealing with a significant amount of stress. Those conversations are necessary, team members said, to possibly save a life.

“As a human race, we’re not prone to conflict,” explained Abby Heidenreich, Orange County extension director and agriculture and natural resources extension educator. “As a neighbor, you don’t want to add to the stress. But that’s the risk you have to take. Even if (talking to them) does tick them off, the more they think about it, the more they may realize they have a problem. Suicide is just too high a price to pay for not saying something.”

It can be stressful for farmers who are asked about their mental health and for those asking the questions, noted Elysia Rodgers, DeKalb County extension director and agriculture and natural resources extension educator. “People under stress usually don’t process as well as expected. Take it slow, take it easy. Be sensitive – it is hard to have that conversation. Don’t make promises you can’t or won’t keep. Tell them you can see the current situation is hard for them and ask what kind of changes they would like to see. Ask what you can do to help them. Tell them you recognize they are hurting.”

Heidenreich and Rodgers are two of 17 active stress team members in the state. The original team of 12 was formed in early 2019 after the group attended a training workshop offered by Michigan State University. The team has extension educators in both agriculture and natural resources and health and human sciences.

Team members received training at Michigan State in two programs, Rodgers said. One – Communicating with Farmers Under Stress – is geared toward those who interact regularly with farmers, including family members, veterinarians, bankers and those in seed, feed and semen sales. The second – Weathering the Storm in Agriculture: How to Cultivate a Productive Mindset – takes an in-depth look at the signs and symptoms of chronic stress. Since it began, the Purdue team has shared the programs with about 1,550 people.

“We’ve come light years in even the last five years in discussing mental health,” Rodgers said. “We all know about it but it’s taking the next step and talking about it with those who may need help.”

The isolation of farming contributes to stress for producers, Heidenreich said. In addition, they must deal with volatile commodity markets, weather, equipment breakdowns and financial issues, she said. “So many of these things are out of their control. That can lead to a feeling of helplessness when you can’t control anything.”

There is also a lot of physical risk in farming, Rodgers added. “There are opportunities to be killed or injured. Working with livestock – you just never know what an animal can do. Just driving a tractor down the road can be a concern. You often hear of farmers being run off the road.”

The Purdue website (https://extension.purdue.edu/farmstress/) offers tips and resources for farmers and those around them. Included on the page is a link to a podcast (Tools for Today’s Farmer) the team started last fall. The page also has links to farm stress information from other universities across the country.

The podcasts – generally two a month posted on Mondays – were started to help those who might feel uncomfortable sharing their concerns and problems in front of others, Heidenreich said. “During our in-person programming, we saw farmers and rural community members who didn’t want to volunteer their experiences with stress. No one wanted to be the first person to talk. Once someone did, others often shared they felt the same thing. The podcast allows us to have conversations with those who have dealt with stress. Farmers can listen while they’re in the cab or doing chores. They may be able to glean some help and hope without sharing information.”

Past guests have included Matt Painter, Purdue’s head basketball coach; Ted McKinney, former under secretary of agriculture for trade and foreign agricultural affairs; and Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

“It all comes back to how they’ve dealt with stress,” Heidenreich pointed out. “We’re opening those conversations of mental health in agricultural and rural communities and pulling back that stigma of mental health. Everyone deals with it. You can spiral very quickly and things can get out of control. The driving message of our podcast is that they’re not alone in dealing with stress.”

Warning signs of stress include changes in behavior, such as an outgoing person normally active in the community participating less, Rodgers said. They may seem off, sad or down. They may go from one extreme to another, she said, as they sometimes might not sleep at all and other times, sleep all the time.

Farmers under stress may not keep up their homesteads as well as they did in the past, Rodgers stated. “If you see a lot more weeds, machinery in the yard starting to rust or livestock not kept up as well as they normally are, those could be signs. If the kids, who normally do well in school, are acting out or their grades are dropping, those could be signs.”

Whether someone will readily accept help depends on the person, she said. “There are a lot of people out there with a lot of different personalities. Some will deny it, saying there’s nothing wrong. Others will be grateful to have the recognition they may have a problem.”

Michigan State’s farm stress program was created a few years ago after the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development reached out to extension about the increase in suicides in the farming community, said Eric Karbowski, Michigan State behavioral health extension educator focusing on farm stress. Since its inception, the program has trained more than 100 extension educators nationwide.

In addition to the Communicating with Farmers Under Stress and Weathering the Storm in Agriculture programs, MSU offers the Rural Resilience program, a three-unit, self-paced course, he said. The course offers instruction on managing stress, communicating with stressed farmers and suicide awareness.

Michigan State has also started a teletherapy pilot project which offers access to therapists via telehealth, he said. The therapists involved with the program have an agricultural connection. To view MSU’s farm stress page, including a link to the teletherapy project, visit https://www.canr.msu.edu/managing_farm_stress/.

Before approaching a farmer who appears to be stressed, people should think about why they’re concerned, Karbowski explained. “Are they (farmers) having thoughts of suicide? Are they writing or talking about death? Are they feeling hopeless, trapped or like they’re a burden? Are they giving away prized possessions? Are they saying goodbye to people?

“You can ask them if they’re having thoughts of suicide. Asking that doesn’t increase the likelihood they will do it. Ask open-ended questions. Don’t over-commit yourself. Realize what you can and can’t do. Follow through is huge.”

As for initiating a conversation, he said it’s important to reduce the stigma of the word suicide. “Just saying the word can be very thought-provoking. Practice saying the word. There may be a lack of comfort in talking with someone. Tell them you’ve noticed this, this and this and ask them what’s going on. It’s important that farmers know there are people who support them just as they support us.”

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 800-273-8255 or text HELLO to 741741 for the Crisis Text Line.