Farmers Are Killing Themselves In Staggering Numbers
Source: CBS News
"Think about trying to live today on the income you had 15 years ago." That's how agriculture expert Chris Hurt describes the plight facing U.S. farmers today.
The unequal economy that's emerged over the past decade, combined with patchy access to health care in rural areas, have had a severe impact on the people growing America's food. Recent data shows just how much. Farmers are dying by suicide at a higher rate than any other occupational group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The suicide rate in the field of farming, fishing and forestry is 84.5 per 100,000 people—more than five times that of the population as a whole. That's even as the nation overall has seen an increase in suicide rates over the last 30 years.
The CDC study comes with a few caveats. It looked at workers over 17 different states, but it left out some major agricultural states, like Iowa. And the occupational category that includes these workers includes small numbers of workers from related occupational groups, like fishing and forestry. (However, agricultural workers make up the vast majority of the "farming, fishing and forestry" occupational group.) Continued...
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/farmers-are-killing-themselves-in-staggering-numbers/ar-AAzbcCN
As America's trading partners slap tariffs on U.S. crops, those prices are set to be further undermined..Unreliable finances are a major reason why three-quarters of farmers must rely on non-farm income, often from a second job. Health insurance access is another. Health care and mental-health services can be critical, Knudson said, particularly in rural areas, where medical care may be scarce. The farm bill that passed the House last week threatens to undo that, she said, because it allows for health insurance to sell plans that exclude mental health coverage. The Senate version of the farm bill allocates $20 million to a program to connect farmers with behavioral health services.
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not just for the sake of the precious lives of our farmers, but also for the integrity of our food supply.
In my younger days, farming used to be a very honorable profession and was peaceful and psychologically rewarding. And, not withstanding some bad years of crop failures or animal disease, it was financially rewarding as well.
I fear the total takeover of industrial farming and mass-scale animal production because the multinationals do not care about the integrity of our food and could care less about effects on our water supplies, degradation of the land or pollution of our environment. And, they fight environmental and food quality regulations at every turn.
This is not much different from mom-and-pop hardware vs Walmart with respect to the effects on our culture. Not sure how we can fight this effectively but it's certainly worth a lot of thought.
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small farmers put their heart and souls into the land and everything growing on it. In addition, they have a vast store of knowledge that's past between generations that cares about the land and our overall environment.
Almost all of my ancestors in TN either were farmers or worked in timber. They instinctively taught me to love the land, air and waters, along with all living things on it or in it, and I'm eternally grateful for that ingrained nature they gave me.
Being mindful of profits only, large corporation have no heart or soul and I feel they're severely accelerating the demise of human existence.
The heartbreaker is that I have no clue as to how we could reverse that trend I've been seeing since the 60s.....
are now in place in China. Many of the livestock modifications claim to be for disease control and better health, but also involve less cost, more profit and easier, quicker yields for large producers.
*If animals weren't grown in such crowded, filthy conditions maybe they wouldn't get so many diseases! Like people..
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/24/genetically-engineered-animals-the-five-controversial-science
Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, has already signalled that genetically modified animals could be sold after Britain leaves the European Union. And now scientists at the University of Edinburgh have succeeded in creating pigs which are completely resistant to Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome, or PRRS, a lethal virus which costs farmers millions each year.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/06/20/genetically-edited-pigs-could-bred-brexit-help-stop-costly-disease/
are multi-millionaires Trumpsters. Hard for me to shed any tears 
I think people confuse "farmer" with general small-town, flyover, and rural dwellers. There aren't a lot of family farmers these days. When I lived in Nebraska, I took an agricultural and environmental ethics class, and there were several students in the class who came from family farm families. They'd been through enough crap already (this was the 1990s) that they were skeptical of politicians. They were very bright and interested in issues like topsoil depletion. What's sad is that even in Nebraska, there were stereotypes of farmers as dumb and backward. They're interesting people, and states like Iowa and Nebraska have elected Democrats who respond to them, but their numbers are not some huge influential voting bloc. It used to be populist messages included farmers, but Trump certainly hasn't done that.
A lot of Trumpers, as trashy and uncouth as their behavior is, are actually quite snobbish and think the dirty, manual work of farming, and the knowledge of the earth and plants and weather is something beneath them. They wouldn't be caught dead doing that job.
I live on the Illinois-Indiana border, and what's funny is that the Illinois Trumpers talk a lot about leaving Illinois because of taxes, but the minute they visit Indiana (which they rarely do), they want to leave. They think the Indiana culture is too "hick" and rural. Some of the worst Trumpers I know are white-flight type suburbanites who live NEAR farms but who are really living in the exurbs, close to the cities for jobs, but far enough away from minorities and immigrants.
Another thing people do is conflate "farmer" with "evangelical" or right-wing Christian. Many instead belong to mainstream denominations, and some aren't even religious.
I liked the farm kids I took my classes with. They were very bright and open-minded. They even tolerated and respected a vegetarian like me. Of course those growing grains or soybeans wouldn't stand to lose if fewer people ate meat. 
