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American Farmers Are in Crisis
Falling prices and a trade war mean small farmers are struggling to stay afloat
Joe Schroeder works as a farm advocate for Farm Aid, where he answers calls to the group’s farmer hotline. The calls, which are up 30 percent over last year, range from routine questions about navigating federal programs and exploring credit options to dire pleas for help from farmers who have run out of ways to keep their businesses solvent. He has heard from three or four suicidal farmers each month this summer.
https://www.eater.com/2018/9/14/17855080...risis-trade-war
Why are America’s farmers killing themselves?
The suicide rate for farmers is more than double that of veterans. A former farmer gives an insider’s perspective on farm life – and how to help
“Farming has always been a stressful occupation because many of the factors that affect agricultural production are largely beyond the control of the producers,” wrote Rosmann in the journal Behavioral Healthcare. “The emotional wellbeing of family farmers and ranchers is intimately intertwined with these changes.”
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggested that male farmers in 17 states took their lives at a rate two times higher than the general population in 2012 and 1.5 times higher in 2015. This, however, could be an underestimate, as the data collected skipped several major agricultural states, including Iowa. Rosmann and other experts add that the farmer suicide rate might be higher, because an unknown number of farmers disguise their suicides as farm accidents.
The US farmer suicide crisis echoes a much larger farmer suicide crisis happening globally: an Australian farmer dies by suicide every four days; in the UK, one farmer a week takes his or her own life; in France, one farmer dies by suicide every two days; in India, more than 270,000 farmers have died by suicide since 1995.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017...-record-numbers
Climate Change and the Death of the Small Farm
The catastrophic flooding in the Midwest is forcing more farmers to consider a stark choice: quit or consolidate.
Sometimes you have a bad year. That’s always been the reality of being a farmer or rancher. The business of growing crops and raising animals for profit requires two crucial elements for success that are out of farmers’ control: good weather, and good government policy. No one enters the agricultural profession thinking that every season is going to be successful.
But farmers and ranchers, particularly in the Midwest, have had more than just a bad year or two. Wisconsin’s dairy farms are in crisis, having lost about half of their net income between 2011 and 2018. They’re now shutting down at a record rate, due to low milk prices, overproduction, and President Donald Trump’s trade war with China and Mexico. That war has also caused billions in combined losses to Iowa’s soybean, corn, and hog industries. Nebraska farmers lost between $700 million and $1 billion in income last year. In Minnesota, farmer income fell 8 percent, making 2018 the worst year since the farm crisis of the 1980s.
And now the Midwest has been hit with historic, devastating floods. Excessive snow melt and rainfall, notably the “bomb cyclone” two weeks ago, have caused vast fields of corn, soy, and other crops to be washed away. Countless hogs, calves, and chickens have been killed. Iowa is estimating $1.6 billion in losses, Nebraska $1.3 billion, but the overall damage is hard to calculate because the floodwaters haven’t receded. It’s likely they’ll get worse. “The extensive flooding we’ve seen in the past two weeks will continue through May and become more dire,” Ed Clark, director of NOAA’s National Water Center, said in a statement to Vox.
While bad luck is indeed normal for the farming business, this season’s crisis is neither normal nor a matter of luck. The volatile weather is part of a larger pattern of human-caused climate change, and the Trump administration is deliberately prioritizing industrial-scale agriculture; both are making it harder for small and midsized family farms to stay afloat. If these trends become the new normal, local family farming as we know it will die.
https://newrepublic.com/article/153390/c...eath-small-farm
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