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Balanced Reporting. Trusted Insights.
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
COVID-19 brought a wave of new economic challenges that producers are still working through. But for beginning farmers, the pandemic has added a new level of stress that's making it that much harder to get started in agriculture, echoing the psychological toll of the 1980s.
Recently there's been a spike in news media attention to farmer suicides brought on by depressed farm-product prices, but there appears to be a lack of solid data to compare the current incidence of suicide on the farm to that of the mid-1980s farm crisis.
Citing high rates of suicide in farm country, Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, are introducing a bill to provide mental health support and more resources in rural areas.
