Coping with stress for farmers

[Tsiyu]

This is a good overview of the effects of a rough economy on rural folk.

From: Better Health Channel online

Rural issues: Coping with Stress




Rural issues - coping with stress


Farming families are under increasing pressure. Financial hardship and other difficulties can lead to stress, depression, relationship breakdown, substance abuse, increased risk of farm accidents and, in some cases, suicide.

Many farm families respond to hard times by tightening the household budget and spending less on food, clothes and maintenance of equipment. They may also rely more on credit. The effort of trying to provide for the family and keep the farm going can be intensely stressful. For a farm family in dire straits, the options may seem bleak - to struggle on is stressful, but to sell the farm and leave the industry would be highly distressing too.

A different kind of work-related stress
Most people experience work-related stress, no matter what their occupation. However, farm families can sometimes respond to work-related stress in different ways to other people. Some of the issues faced by farmers include:

Most farmers could never imagine doing anything else for a living, since farming is part of their identity.
The farm is not only the workplace, but the home too.
The welfare of the family depends directly on the fortunes of the farm.
Family tradition is strong, since the farm may have been in the family for generations.
The farm may be the only real investment the family has and the sole legacy for the children.
Selling the farm would feel like a terrible betrayal of past and future generations.
People who farm the land tend to pride themselves on self-sufficiency and independence, so asking for help can be hard to do.


more at link :hi:

[acmavm]

1. Ah, but who did most of these guys vote for (at least here in Nebraska)?

[Tsiyu]

2. Hey, I was just on the Nebraska site

Lemme dig it up

(and BTW, in my rural community, most voted for Dems.)



Now, that site (sound of grunting as bhg tries to drag it through the dial-up internet tubes)


Aha!:

http://ianrnews.unl.edu/byTopic/Rural1.shtml

It's a page of links to Nebraska farm news. You probably already have this bookmarked, but I thought that was a funny coincidence.

[acmavm]

5. I live in Omaha, somewhat democratic, but not enough obviously.

We are living in a red state. That says it all.

Yeah, I have that site bookmarked. I check what I condider to be the most important map of the United States regularly. The drought monitor.
Think there's war over oil? Wait 'til the water wars get going full speed ahead.

http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html

[Tsiyu]

6. You're telling me

Currently I am on a well that is spring fed, pumped by a puny jet pump at a depth of 25 feet.

If most people only knew how much water they really use they would be shocked.

Our well has stayed relatively clean and will never dry up (unless the spring does) but refill is very slow when we are in drought conditions.

We have to budget water now due to lack of rainfall. It is not fun. No laundry. You can wash about half a load of dishes. Fill 1/3rd of a stock tank.

I shudder to think what people will do if there ever are widespread water shortages. :scared:

[NMDemDist2]

10. we have Co-op water in the new place and they actually ran out

last year. conditions are better this year and they were forced to do some work on capped wells

but it's frightening all right

if you get a chance read the book Bushie claims to have read "Salt"

it's fascinating

[Tsiyu]

12. I will check that out. thanks n/t

[acmavm]

13. Oh, there are. Some states are blocking off rivers to keep water

from going downstream to other states. The water table is a big issue. Up in places like Oregon where my friend lives when a well runs dry it's a tragedy.

Good luck.

[Tsiyu]

14. We are blessed on this mountain with ample water

My dear neighbors down the road have a deep well that never runs dry and they always share but I hate to bug them.

Other neighbors also have adequate wells. They guy who sold me this place just kind of went for the cheapest route, as he had planned to put in city water for his family.

I'm going to save up ( once I get called back to work ) for the solar-powered submersible my other neighbors have. That way it runs even during a power failure.

If all else fails, we have at least one other spring on our farmette, so we'll be okay, but I worry about folks out west and in Atlanta.

[newfie11]

18. Here is the western panhandle the farmers I know voted repug

I am sorry to say they have not changed their minds.
We are fortunate that our irrigation water comes from reservoirs high in the Wyoming mountains and for two years running a surplus. That can change quickly of course.
The folks with deep wells in some areas have been cut back for several years on the amount they can pump.

[NMDemDist2]

3. my poor inlaws and brother in law saw the fertilizer bill DOUBLE

this spring and diesel is so expensive and the wheat prices did't go up a bit!

[Tsiyu]

7. It's going to be a very bad year for farmers around here

Costs plus drought mean a lean profit, if any.

My condolences to your inlaws.

[NMDemDist2]

8. they're in Eastern Washington/Western Idaho so no drought this

year. it's almost been too wet, they are hoping it'll dry up so the grain can ripen up

[Tsiyu]

11. That's good

I'll hope for sunshine there! :)

[nosmokes]

4. there aren't that many family farmers left, ones who farm their own land.

those thst are, if they are still farming *conventionally*, with tons of pesticides and mono-cropping, most likely are in hock right up to their ass or higher, because as oil prices rise then so too does the price of the petro based fertilizers they need to replace the nutrients they've poisoned out of their soil and the pesticdes they need to control the weeds and and bugs and disease they've left themselves vulnerable to by throwing everything everything out of balance with the use, over use and abuse of petrochemicals.

but my heart goes out to these people. they were doing what they were told to do, they were doing what was supposedly the best thing for them and their farm and the country, when in fact it was only the best thing for agricorps and banks. what pisses me off is that it was all subsidised and promoted by the government and our taxes, when we knew 30 years ago at least that it was not sustainable, that poisoning the soil, the water, the air and the crops you're growing just doesn't make sense, and it can't last. and we are just beginning to reap what we have sown

[Tsiyu]

9. Actually there is a lot of hope out there

Stores cannot keep up with the demand for organic produce and dairy and grains, so there is a great niche opening up for farmers willing to try non-traditional methods.

The benefits to farmers themselves are impressive: lower cost to produce, lowered exposure to toxic soil amendments, high demand for product.

The problem for producers now is the huge quantities the buyers want to procure. Rather than working locally, WalMart and other buyers want to negotiate one contract to cover all of their needs at the lowest cost possible. This opens the way for factory farmers to come in and cheat the public by not truly practicing organic methods and to cheat the small farmers by over-growing and under-pricing them out of business.

New farmers have to bust butt to find new markets, perhaps local restaurants, hotels, hospitals, universities, health food stores. But there are a number of successful organic operations around me and I'm sure if you poke around, you'll find some brave souls near you making a go of it.

[nosmokes]

15. yeah, we're blessed here in oregon, especially the NW corner -

the eat local/eat organic movement has really taken hold there and to a lessed extent down in eugene/springfield where i'm at. there are even some burger joints that use local pastured beef. and the number of family producers, a majority of whom are organic or bio-intensive has actually increased in the last couple of decades. the CSA movement is pretty popular here as well, though it's still miniscule compared to overall scheme of things. and the local city council is trying to lure whole foods to downtrown by building them a muli-million dollar parking garage, even though our weekly farmer's market could easily go daily and year round if we had a covered space with electricity available so we could sell local dairy and meats and have some secur space for permanent stalls instead of setting up and tearing down stalls in the park 3 and 4 times a week.

[Tsiyu]

16. Small farmers have to work harder and network, but there is power

in numbers, so working together will help all.

Your farmer's market story illustrates that point.

Have any of the vendors made a proposal to your town leaders? Might be a good idea to have some meetings and formulate a long-range plan.

Organic is growing, but the gov't is doing all it can to discourage healthy farming practices. Farmers have to work harder, but in the long run they will develop a significant lobbying power. :)

[Herbie Hancock]

17. I agree

[fasttense]

19. I have found we can't keep up with demand.

At first, we had a problem selling our produce before it went to seed or rotted in storage but once we hooked up into the farmer's market, it opened up a lot of other markets for us. If we grow it, we can sell it now. We have a hard time keeping up with demand. But you have to be careful. There are distributors and wholesalers who will cheat you out of your meager profits so we don't sell to big distributors. But there are so many better paying smaller, willing distributors, you don't need Wal-Mart to make a good living.

We are Certified Naturally Grown and as petroleum based product costs increase, our costs remain relatively stable. We have chickens and other animals to produce fertilizer for us. Because of a stink bug infestation, we recently up-graded our bug control methods, we bought ducks.

True the droughts have become regular and more severe but we have adopted with changes in what and how we plant. Luckily we have never run out of water.