Farm Groups Partner for Emergency Action as U.S. Farmer Suicides Reach Crisis Rate

Dec. 27, 2019 (EIRNS)—The incidence of farmer suicides is now a U.S. crisis. Recently farmer organizations have created a joint effort to reach rural families in stress, before despair leads to death. The American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Farmers Union, and Farm Credit announced on Dec. 16 a partnership to intervene with a program developed in Michigan, to offer emergency counseling and long-term help.

National Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall spoke on the crisis in a recent trip to Montana. He reported that his own home farm in Georgia has on either side of it, a long-time dairy farm, and that both these dairy farm neighbors have committed suicide in recent months.

Yesterday, senior Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) wrote a statement on his website reporting that the rate of suicide in rural America is 45% higher than that of urban areas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Grassley wrote,

“Farmers have higher rates than the general population. A number of factors may contribute to the rural-urban disparity, including geographic isolation, distance from health care services, stigma associated with obtaining mental health care services, and financial pressures stemming from the downturn in the farm economy.”

Farmers are starting the sixth year of prices below or scarcely at costs of production. Indebtedness is rising, with no relief in sight. What is required is Federal action to restore an economy-serving banking system with the Glass-Steagall Act, a national bank, and plentiful credit, plus parity-based pricing for farmers, and anti-trust action to prevent processor consolidation. There is precedent for all this, but so far, very few policy advocates are willing to mobilize for these measures, instead confining their efforts to sympathy and encouragement.

Grassley’s posting compares today to the 1980s farm crisis. “The desolation of losing a farm that had been in a family for generations was too much for too many farmers to handle. The loss of life and livelihoods still echoes throughout farming communities decades later.”

Grassley and Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D) introduced a bill on Oct. 15 titled, “Seeding Rural Resilience Act” to train U.S. Department of Agriculture staff to recognize and deal with mental stress in rural communities.