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Farmers After Hours Series gets frank on mental health
Farming is hard, a new series is talking about the real-life challenges and how to manage.
Kate Thiel with the Michigan Foundation for Agriculture tells Brownfield their Farmers After Hours Series was born out of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to help farmers have an open and unanimous conversation about their wellbeing.
“A lot of folks have felt like there’s just a lot of things that have just piled up and it gets to be overwhelming. How do you find your way?”
The six-topic series opens with a farmer panel where participants openly shared about building stress, anxiety, and depression they’ve felt as the weight of owning a farm built.
“If I can help one person feel better, then it’s been a success to share my story.”
“I see it in my family, and sometimes there’s nothing you can do. You just simply pray.”
“You start thinking, wow, how much time do I got? I’m not going to go though the rest of my life miserable. I’m going to be happy and I’m going to figure out how to get there.”
Thiel says the videos are also available to viewed anytime and broken into small segments to meet people where they are.
“Part of the resources that we dove deeper into were those that we could instill into our daily lives and hope those practices could change our frame of mind, and maybe give us some peace and calmness.”
The last live discussion of the series wraps up Tuesday.
She says Michigan Farm Bureau has developed a Stress and Mental Health Resource Center to enhance these efforts and plans to create meaningful partnerships to address farm stress. Another series is planned for financial fundamentals and profitability later this year.
American Farm Bureau’s Rural Resiliency Task Force is also providing a platform where states can share either efforts to eliminating mental health stigma and resources available.
