Farm Stress

Farmers are tough. They work long days at physically demanding, often dangerous work and rarely get a break, much less a vacation. Months of hard work can be wiped out with a few days of bad weather, and they battle nature at every turn, from drought and floods to weeds and insects. Farmers and ranchers rank high on the list of most stressful professions and farmer suicide rates are higher than the overall population of workers. But farmers are also resilient, and a multidisciplinary team from the University of Georgia’sCollege of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences,UGA Cooperative Extension, UGASchool of Social Workand UGACollege of Family and Consumer Sciencesis working to help farmers handle the hard times through a number of projects, including theFarmer Stress and Suicide: Community Prevention and Interventionprogram, all under the umbrella of theRural Georgia: Growing Strongerinitiative. Supported byinterdisciplinary research pre-seed fundingfrom the UGA Office of Research an...