Mental illness in the global farming industry
More than one farmer a week in the UK dies by suicide, but this is part of a wider, worrying trend. Farmers across the world take their lives at such alarming rates.
The U.S. farmer suicides rates are just under two times that of the general population. In the U.K. one farmer a week commits suicide.
In China, farmers are killing themselves daily to protest the government taking over their prime agricultural lands for urbanization. In France, a farmer dies by suicide every two days. Australia reports one farmer suicides every four days.
India yearly reports more than 17,627 farmer suicides, with more than 270,000 Indian farmers taking their own life since 1995.
The suicide death rate for farmers in the USA was more than double that of military veterans. This, however, could be an underestimate, as the data collected skipped several major agricultural states, including Iowa. Experts add that the farmer suicide rate might be higher, because an unknown number of farmers disguise their suicides as farm accidents. Data also suggested that the suicide rate for agricultural workers in 17 states was nearly five times higher compared with that in the general population.
Sowing Seeds of Hope (SSOH), which began in Wisconsin, connected uninsured and underinsured farmers in seven midwestern states to affordable behavioural health services. For 14 years, the organization fielded approximately a half-million telephone calls from farmers, trained over 10,000 rural behavioural health professionals, and provided subsidized behavioural health resources to over 100,000 farm families. In 2014, the federal funding that supported Sowing Seeds of Hope came to an end, and the program was shuttered.
For decades now, farming in India has been blighted by drought, small plot sizes, a depleting water table, declining productivity and lack of modernisation. Half of its people work in farms, but farming contributes only 15% to India’s GDP.
Put simply, farms employ a lot of people but produce too little. And whilst drought is a common issue, the other extreme also has a negative effect. Monsoons can lead to a crop glut, with the surplus prompting prices to nosedive.
Another issue with having a bumper harvest is the limitations of agricultural infrastructure in the country. For example, India is one of the world’s biggest onion producers. The vegetable is 85% water and loses weight quickly, and when stored on concrete covered by tarpaulin, and weather is favourable, 3-5% of the stored crop is wasted in storage.
Should temperatures rise however, 25-30% of the stored crop could be wasted. In a modern cold storage, however, onions can be stored in wooden boxes at 4C, with crop wastage at less than 5%. But India just doesn’t have enough cold storages, with the 7,000 sites mostly in the north of the country. Secondly, not enough food processing is taking place.
Once again, onion bulbs can be dehydrated to prevent them from perishing early, yet currently less than 5% of India’s fruit and vegetables is processed. Storage costs about a rupee (less than a US cent) for every kilogram of onion a month. Farmers demand waivers on loans and higher prices for their crops.
Whilst there are unavoidable aspects of the farming industry that can prompt social isolation and impact the mental welfare of farmers, often there is more that can be done to protect the economic viability of the industry, and alleviate some of the pressures experienced by agricultural workers.