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FOND DU LAC, Wis. — Nicole Barlass knows the pressures that come with farming. She’s part of a family dairy operation in Sheboygan Falls.
“Anyone will tell you it’s a 24/7 business, 365 days a year,” Barlass said. “We’re working constantly to care for animals, to care for our land and then to try to be normal families on top of everything.”
On Tuesday, she was part of a roundtable discussion on the topic with leaders from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP). The focus was on what’s working and what more that can be done to better support the mental health of Wisconsin farmers.
According to the Rural Health Information Hub, the suicide rate for men working in the agriculture industry is higher than the national average for all other occupations.
“I’ll be honest, it is a tough topic. But I think that’s the great thing, we’ve seen so much improvement in the past how many years,’ Barlass said. “It’s becoming more acceptable to talk about mental health challenges and people’s struggles.”
Randy Romanski leads DATCP, which includes the Wisconsin Farm Center, a resource created to help farmers with a range of industry challenges, including mental health struggles.
“About 10% of the state’s population are in a job related to agriculture,” he said. “If you think about it, that’s a really big responsibility for a really small part of our population.”
Gov. Tony Evers is seeking to double the Farm Center’s farmer wellness program budget to $200,000 and add two more staff members.
“The growth in awareness of the programming has been exponential,” Romanski said. “The number of farmer mental health vouchers that were given out last year doubled the previous high.”
While progress is being made, Barlass acknowledged that there’s still a lot of work to be done.
“The challenge is there are so many farmers that are out there on their own,” she said. “There are a lot of feelings that they still have to overcome and be able to talk about mental health.”