Mental-health experts are calling for more sustained support for the well-being of agricultural communities in North Dakota, where farmers face pressures ranging from soaring input costs and labor uncertainty to extreme weather, financial strain, health-care costs and family stress.

Florence Bicott, an associate professor of agricultural safety and health at Penn State University, said those overlapping pressures can contribute to higher rates of depression and anxiety in farm communities. Farmers are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide, she said.

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“Often when we look at how we support the agricultural sector, we tend to focus on access to land, access to capital, access to equipment,” Bicott said. “But we know that health and well-being challenges, besides impacting the quality of life, they have broad repercussions on the productivity of the farm operation.”

Bicott said stigma, isolation and a lack of resources often keep farmers from seeking help.

The North Dakota Farmers Union offers assistance to farmers and ranchers in crisis. People can also call 1-800-FARM-AID to get connected to local support. Anyone with an urgent need should call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 for immediate assistance.

Bicott said concerns about mental-health challenges in the agricultural sector have grown over the past 15 years. Labor shortages, difficulty attracting and retaining workers, and increased industry consolidation all take a mental toll, she said.

She also said the well-being of women on farms is often overlooked because men make up more than 60% of the industry workforce, even though mental-health issues are prevalent among women in agriculture.

“We don’t often talk about it in agriculture," Bicott said, "but in a national study that we had conducted, almost half of the people who responded among a group of farmers who had children under 18 had reported that someone in the household had experienced pre- or postpartum depression.”

Bicott said that while federal and state programs exist to support farmers, the overall response tends to ebb and flow based on the crisis at hand.

As National Mental Health Awareness Month wraps up, she said there should be proactive investment in fixed resources to better address the ongoing need.

“The reality is that mental health challenges in agriculture are chronic rather than episodic,” Bicott said. “And so how do we build sustainability in the programs that are being developed so that they are there no matter what, so that we don’t lose the institutional work that is being done?”