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There’s no doubt that, all along the food chain, folks work very hard to get ingredients from the farm to our stomachs.
Harvesting, processing, transporting, cooking, and serving food can be hard on people’s bodies—and their mental health and well-being.
Among farm workers, rates of depression alone could be as high as 45 percent, as calculated in a Nebraska study in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health. Falling prices, lower yields due to climate disasters, debt, political instability in trade disputes and food relief, and more all put pressure on farmers. Nearly half of agricultural laborers (42 percent, per a California study) face low or very low food security, and many also are not given sufficient rest breaks or protection from the heat or cold.
Fishers and those working in aquaculture also face long hours working in isolation, exposed to harsh environmental conditions. Meat processors report symptoms of Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress, a form of PTSD that stems from having caused trauma to animals.
“I didn’t suffer physical injuries, but the place affected my mind,” an anonymous slaughterhouse worker told the BBC. “As I spent day after day in that large, windowless box, my chest felt increasingly heavy and a grey fog descended over me…After a while, I started feeling suicidal.”
And the restaurant and food service industries are among the most unhealthy workplaces for psychological well-being, according to Mental Health America. A majority or near-majority of restaurant workers are facing emotional abuse or disrespect from both customers and managers and feeling “pushed to their breaking point.”
For some folks, the mental health challenges of working in the food system are life-or-death. Farmers, ranchers, and farm managers are 1.5 to 2 times more likely to die by suicide compared to the general population, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Other analyses put that number at 3.5 times more likely.
These examples are heartbreaking. The people who power our food system deserve to have livelihoods that build them up, not tear them down.
We want to shine a light on some of the amazing advocates who are working to change this reality and save lives.
Cultivemos, a program of the National Young Farmers Coalition, is creating a provider network in the Northeast U.S. to build behavioral health access and improve outcomes among agricultural workers.
Rural Resilience is creating online educational workshops to improve farmer mental healthcare. The Minnesota Rural Mental Health outreach program is doing great work meeting farmers where they’re at for counseling. Project Black and Blue is stepping up for food service workers in crisis, helping make medical and wellness treatment economically possible.
The Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association runs a wellness program that connects organizations and opportunities with fishers and their families, and a limited-run podcast series helped spark more crucial conversations. And The National Center for Farmworker Health provides mental health resources for agricultural workers.
These organizations, and so many others, are walking the walk; stepping up to nourish those who work every day to nourish us. Here is a list we published a few years ago with 22 more amazing groups supporting mental health at every step in the food chain.
This problem highlights huge cracks in our food and agriculture system. Poor mental health is entrenched in a production economy that fails to protect the most vulnerable. There’s a lot of social media buzz around wellness initiatives and self-care, which are important concepts, but they’re not enough on their own to address the complex stressors and psychological factors food system workers experience. And, often, they’re a luxury that those working in food and agriculture simply can’t afford.
To truly transform the state of mental health in the food system—and improve the lives of those who work within it—we need substantive policy steps and tangible financial resources devoted to creating healthier working conditions, making counseling easier to afford and access, and helping people develop financial stability and food security.
And let’s not forget, either, about the additional threats of sexual harassment and discrimination faced by women and farm workers of color. One study, in the Journal of Rural Mental Health, notes that the psychological stressors faced by employed Latina farm workers were greater than those faced by their unemployed counterparts!
Thankfully, over the past couple years, we’ve been moving in the right direction, as policymakers acknowledge and act upon the fact that mental health needs to be taken as seriously as physical health in the food industry. Under the Biden-Harris administration, there’s significant funding going toward rural prosperity and resources being devoted to U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that make mental health care conveniently accessible.
The bipartisan Fishing Industry Safety, Health, and Wellness Improvement (FISH Wellness) Act, introduced in the U.S. Senate last year, calls for expanding existing programs to encompass more aspects of worker well-being—a model that can be replicated in other sectors, too. The bipartisan Farmers First Act calls for expanding and strengthening behavioral health services in rural communities, and the Supporting Farm Workers’ Mental Health Act would explicitly include farm workers as an eligible population to receive support from the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network.
The mental health crisis among food and agriculture workers is a systemic problem. We can’t bring meaningful transformation to the food system without stepping up to protect the lives and livelihoods of the people who power it!
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Photo courtesy of Tim Mossholder, Unsplash
