UGA study highlights systemic challenges facing farmers
While research into farmers’ mental health has expanded over the past decade, many studies focus on the day-to-day pressures of farming. A new study from the University of Georgia College of Public Health provides a critical shift in focus toward the forces that shape the future of agriculture.
Noah Hopkins, CPH doctoral student
“This paper really speaks to the fact that day-to-day experiences of stress are driven by larger forces that are even farther outside of farmers’ control,” said lead author and doctoral student Noah Hopkins.
The study, published in Community Science, utilized interviews with 31 managers and owners of small- to mid-sized farms in Georgia. While participants shared concerns about their own operations, many of their worries extended to the broader industry.
Farmers cited environmental concerns, increased regulatory pressure, succession planning, a disconnect from the non-farming community and land development as a few of their stressors.
“In past research, we’ve addressed stressors by providing education or thinking about programs and interventions,” said co-author and clinical associate professor Christina Proctor. “But a lot of this data was pointing to things that were much larger. These are social and political factors that are impacting the stress that farmers deal with.”
Shifting to a systems-based approach
While stress management on an individual level remains important, Hopkins said, it acts “like a band-aid on a very serious wound.” Some interventions provide temporary support, but long-term challenges persist.
Government regulation was one area farmers expressed concern. Many regulatory changes lead to a financial burden on farmers.
“There are people authoring policy around agriculture that have a very theoretical understanding, but not really a practical working knowledge of how policy change impacts farms,” Hopkins said. “For example, one farmer described how a newly required emissions scrubber on one of his combines not only increased its fuel consumption but also created issues with other systems on the machine, creating new technological and financial problems for the farmer.”
Farmers cited “razor thin margins” and being “run off” by larger corporations, while not being able to receive government support. Most subsidies go to the top 10% of farms in the U.S., Hopkins said, and smaller operations get smaller payments.
“Everything we do costs more money than we’re going to get out of it. And there’s really no you know; our margins are not nowhere close to what any other business’s margins are,” one farmer shared.
As rural communities shrink, farmland is being sold off at a profit. One farmer said when a hay field was sold for $6,000 an acre, it was then cleared and flipped to a developer for $10,000 an acre. This results in
remaining farmers becoming more isolated and more concerned for the feasibility of their operation.
“Even though farming has been, in some cases, a generational vocation for these families, it can feel so untenable that people are encouraging their children to consider other pathways,” Hopkins said. “That only accelerates the loss of small- to mid-size farms.”
Amplifying voices in and around agriculture
Once the paper was published, Proctor was contacted by a Florida-based farmer and mental health advocate. He was eager to use the paper as a platform to connect farmers, amplify their voices and help policy makers understand what is at stake. The next step is connecting across communities.
“We have some people who already bridge that gap [between farmers and researchers], and they can help disseminate this information,” Proctor said. “But we also need to talk to bankers, extension agents, the people who are working directly with the farmers. They can help gather even more voices.”
And while the study does not provide direct solutions, Proctor and Hopkins said providing evidence-backed results is an important first step toward changing systems and helping farmers understand they are not alone.
“I think farmers are ready to start having these conversations,” Hopkins said. “This is something that resonates with people regardless of commodity, regardless of the state where they’re producing, regardless of operating scale. Everybody is feeling that squeeze.”
This paper was co-authored by Christopher Weatherly, assistant professor in UGA School of Social Work, who provided a systems-level perspective to the interview analysis; and Master of Public Health student Chase Reece.
By Erica Techo
