By Melissa Godin
When Mike Rosmann, an Iowa farmer and psychologist, heard his phone ring on a spring morning in 2019, he knew he had to answer. In the previous four months, his state had experienced the wettest period in its recorded history; farmers in the region were in crisis. A week earlier, one of Rosmann’s patients had lost his entire stock of corn when floodwaters breached a storage barrier, threatening to bankrupt him. Rosmann knew the man was in a dark place.
When he picked up the phone, his patient’s wife was on the other end: “He said he’s going to kill himself.”
The climate crisis is wreaking havoc on farms across the United States. Wildfires in California are burning avocado and citrus trees to a crisp, drought in the Midwest has eroded corn and soybean production, and unseasonal Arctic fronts are killing maple blossoms across the Northeast.
These impacts are only getting worse. A 2022 survey by the National Young Farmers Coalition found that more than half of young farmers said they experienced climate impacts either very or extremely often. For farmers, wildfires, drought, floods, and pests are not just an inconvenience—they are an existential threat. A 2022 study published by the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics at the University of California found that extreme heat is “positively associated” with farmer suicide. A 2021 study by a Colorado-based suicide prevention group found that when drought conditions increased in the state so did the suicide rate among farmers.
It’s a phenomenon occurring around the world, from India to Australia.
“This is what climate change is doing,” says Rosmann. “It’s putting people in a place of extreme apprehension, where they feel there is no way out.”
Experts say they have witnessed a rise in farmers struggling with anxiety and depression as climate impacts have worsened in recent years. The farmer crisis hotline run by Farm Aid, for instance, has seen a significant increase of calls from farmers during natural disasters linked to climate change.
“When climate disaster strikes, or an ongoing disaster such as drought is occurring, the toll on farmer mental health is high,” says Caitlin Arnold-Stephano, a farmer and program manager at Farm Aid. “Often a disaster can push a farmer over the already-thin margin or edge that existed.”
In recent years, the federal government has woken up to the mental health crisis affecting farmers. The 2018 Farm Bill was the first to direct funding toward farmers’ mental health, by providing grants for the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN), which connects farmers, ranchers, and agricultural workers with mental health assistance programs and resources.
Advocates hope that the 2023 Farm Bill will offer even more support. Bipartisan legislation, led by Senators Joni Ernst (R–Iowa) and Tammy Baldwin (D–Wisc.), would reauthorize the FRSAN to establish helplines, provide suicide prevention training for farm advocates, and create support groups for farmers and farmworkers. The bill would increase funding for the program, authorizing $15 million per year for the program for the next five years, up from $10 million allocated in the last Farm Bill.
“We need to push for the network to be expanded,” says Rosmann, who helped write the 2018 legislation. “The bill is the major way we can bring about change on this issue.”
Even before climate change began taking its toll, farmers already faced severe mental health issues. The rate of suicide among farmers has historically been three-and-a-half times higher compared to the general population, according to the National Rural Health Association. Farmers often work under precarious and psychologically taxing conditions due to weather variations, changing policies, and economic tariffs, as well as fluctuating food prices. In the 1980s, American farmers faced an economic crisis that saw a quarter million families lose their farms, destroying businesses and decimating rural communities. Yet despite these challenges, farmers are less likely than the general public to have access to mental health services.
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