Researchers at the Georgia Rural Health Innovation Center at Mercer University, with assistance from the Georgia Foundation for Agriculture, have released their study, “Farmer’s Mental Well-Being Project: Statewide Survey Report.” The study showed that 29% of farmer workers, owners and managers had thought of suicide in the past year. Among first-generation farmers, 60% said they had suicidal thoughts in the past year.
The survey was done earlier this year and farmers from all but two of Georgia’s 159 counties participated in the study.
The study quantifies what many in agriculture have long known: farming, with so many factors outside the farmer’s control, comes with extraordinary stress. The survey showed 96% of farmers are either moderately or highly stressed. In addition, 40% of farmers felt lonely at least once in the last month, 49% felt sad or depressed and 39% felt hopeless.
Survey participants were presented a wide array of stressors and asked to identify which ones affected them. The two most common were home/work life balance and weather. For each of those, 61% said they were moderately worried, worried a lot or extremely worried. Following those stressors were COVID-19 impact on income (59%), saving for retirement (59%) and unexpected financial burdens (59%).
The respondents were asked to identify the ways they manage their stress. The most common, noted by 39% of respondents, was exercise or walking, followed by talking to family or friends (31%), engaging in a hobby (28%), drinking alcohol (27%), watching TV or reading (27%) and sleep (22%).
In addition to drinking alcohol, survey participants said they use cannabis (5%), other illicit drugs (4%) and over-the-counter drugs (2%). Visit www.georgiaruralhealth.org/farmworkersurvey/ to access the final report and to access the results of a pilot study done in 2021.
The Georgia Foundation for Agriculture is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded by the Georgia Farm Bureau in 2014. The GFA works with Georgia Farm Bureau and other Georgia agricultural and educational organizations to achieve its mission. The foundation offers scholarships to students pursuing agricultural careers and funds leadership development programs and projects that increase the public’s understanding of agriculture. Visit www.GaFoundationAg.org for more information.
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