Mental Health and Farming: How Stress Impacts Farmers, Their Families, and Their Farms
In several countries, farmers face many occupational stressors and have higher levels of depression, anxiety, burnout, thoughts of suicide, and death by suicide.
We know how high stress and poor mental health affects people generally, and to some extent, how it affects people in specific job roles, but we do not know enough about the effects of high stress and poor mental health in farmers specifically.
The objective here was to explore Canadian farmers’ experience of high stress and (or) poor mental health, including the perceived impacts.
Read this open access paper on the FACETS website.
We conducted 75 research interviews with farmers and people who work closely with farmers, in Ontario, Canada, between July 2017 and May 2018.
From the interviews, we found four ways stress and mental health problems impact farmers: personally, in their relationships, in how they think, and in their work.
This affects not just the farmers themselves, but also their families, animals, and the success of their farms. It is clear that helping farmers manage stress and mental health is crucial for sustainable and successful farming.
Read the paper — Poor mental health negatively impacts farmers personally, interpersonally, cognitively, and professionally by Andria Q. Jones, Alexandra Sawatzky, Rochelle Thompson, and Briana N.M. Hagen.
