Georgia Farmers Face Mental Health Crisis as Suicide Rates Increase

“Growing up on a farm, you know, we were kind of taught to mind our own business … We might talk about somebody who’s got cancer down the road, but they wouldn’t talk about somebody that’s had mental health issues. You just didn’t talk about that,” said the Georgia Agricultural Wellness Alliance Director John McElveen. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 or chat online at 988lifeline.org. But the CDC lists mental health as a public concern with studies suggesting farmer suicides are double that of the general population. Despite the high suicide rates, stigma around mental health persists in Georgia’s farming communities. “It still remains, as far as the health sector, probably the most stigmatized arena … and yet this message that ‘mental health is health’ is getting more and more traction every day,” said McElveen. The Georgia Agricultural Wellness Alliance is a statewide partnership based at Mercer’s Georgia Rural Health Innovation Center. They