The suicide rate in rural America is 45% greater than in large urban areas, according to a study released last fall by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A more recent CDC report said Montana's suicide rate leads the nation, coming in at nearly twice the national average. A third long-touted CDC study, currently under review, listed farming in the occupational group, along with fishing and forestry, with the highest rate of suicide deaths.
That occupational study was based on 2012 data, when farming was strong and approaching its peak in 2013, says Jennifer Fahy, communications director for the nonprofit Farm Aid. Farmers' net income has fallen 50% since 2013 and is expected to drop to a 12-year low this year, the US Department of Agriculture reports.
Fahy says farmers are facing more stress now than they have since the farming crisis of the 1980s, when hundreds of farms were...
