Mental Health on the Farm: Breaking the Silence in Rural America

The holidays bring heightened attention to mental health and stress. Mental health struggles in rural communities, particularly among farmers and ranchers, have long been hidden behind a culture of toughness and self-reliance.

Washington State Representative Tom Dent, Republican from Moses Lake, has worked to increase awareness and resources for his fellow rural ranchers and farmers and get more people to understand that growing pressures facing agriculture makes addressing mental health essential.

Dent, a cattle and bison rancher, grew up in what he describes as a different era. “I grew up in the era of ‘suck it up, buttercup. We’ll get her done,’” he told American Farmland Owner.

“That was… that’s reality,” he said, “That’s what we grew up with.”

Along with that mindset came a deep stigma around mental illness. “If you have a mental health issue, then you’re just crazy or something, right? And that’s wrong,” he stressed.

Dent emphasized that society treats physical and mental health very differently. “We tell our people that if you have a heart problem, let’s go down and get your heart fixed. You can recover,” he said.

“But if you’re mentally ill, well, we say you can recover, but we’re not allowing people to recover,” Dent lamented.

For Dent, this contradiction lies at the heart of the problem: mental illness is real, common, and treatable, yet too often ignored or minimized.

Stress of Farming

Agriculture, Dent noted, sits at the intersection of multiple stressors that amplify mental health risks. Regulatory pressure, volatile markets, rising input costs, and weather uncertainty all converge on farmers and ranchers. “The challenge that we’re having in our industry right now is all the challenges we’ve talked about—the regulatory challenge, the financial challenges—from all angles coming at the people in the agricultural world,” he said.

Those pressures ripple outward into rural towns, affecting local cafes, car dealers, and main street businesses that depend on farm income.

Dent’s concern is not abstract. He has personal experience with friends and acquaintances who have faced mental health crises and suicide. That history led him to become deeply involved in legislative efforts to study and address the issue.

He recalled legislation led by a colleague to examine mental health and suicide in agriculture. “That’s where I really got immersed in this,” Dent said. “We have to do something, because this is a major issue.”

RELATED: Additional mental health support is just one thing that rural Americans need right now, Representative Tom Dent told American Farmland Owner. Here is what else deserves more attention. 

Mental Health Challenges for Farmers

According to Dent, agriculture has “the highest suicide rate of any sector in the United States of America.”

Even more troubling, he said, is the scale of the problem: “It’s three and a half times higher than what’s in second place,” he said.

For Dent, that statistic alone demands action. “We’re overloading the people that are taking care of us, that are growing our food, and we’re not helping them.”

He continued, “The biggest stressors are financial and regulatory overload.

Those pressures can push even the most resilient individuals to the brink. “What has taken a normally sane human being… and put him in a position where he wants to take his own life?” Dent asked.

The answer, he said, lies in unrelenting stress with too little support.

The Workload of Agriculture

Beyond finances and regulation, Dent pointed to the isolation that often creeps into farm life. There is always work to be done. “There’s never a time when, ‘Oh, I don’t need to go home, there’s nothing to do,’” he said.

Over time, social connections fall away. “They’re not doing any social life. They skip church… and pretty soon, then the strain and the stress… begins to overcome them,” Dent warned.

Dent believes the solution starts with honesty and compassion. “Any one of us can have a mental health issue on any one day,” he said. “And it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to recover and be fine.”

He urges people to watch out for one another. “Don’t be afraid to ask them. Don’t be afraid to love them, don’t be afraid to hug them, because that’s what we all need.”

RELATED: Washington apple and pear grower Kait Thornton told American Farmland Owner  how the stress of farming drove her mother away from the family farm.