'Heartbreaking': Yanked funds plunge Utah farmers into risk of suicide

Josh Dallin spends his workdays talking to Utahns who raise cattle and grow crops, and knew that many were in distress. Everyone from neighbors to fertilizer dealers to equipment suppliers were telling him they were worried that a farmer or rancher they knew was at risk of suicide.

Then in 2023, with money allocated by Congress, Dallin had new help to offer: As executive director of an agriculture center at Utah State University Extension, he had scores of $2,000 vouchers that Utahns working in agriculture could use to get free therapy.

Dallin feared no one in the typically stoical farming community would take him up on the federally funded offer. He was wrong.

Farmers and ranchers across Utah quickly accepted the money, which ran out in just four months — well before he expected — and his office had to start turning people away. It convinced Dallin of the deep need in the state’s agricultural communities, and people’s openness to getting help when cost is not a barrier. “I want you to know,” he recalled one voucher recipient telling him, “that this saved my life.”

“It was heartbreaking,” he said, to have to put “the brakes on the program.”

The money for the vouchers was part of a one-time $28 million allocation sent to states to help Americans producing food handle the extra stresses of the coronavirus pandemic. Any state that applied to the U.S. Department of Agriculture was awarded up to half a million dollars — which was used to hold trainings, start hotlines staffed by mental health workers and, like in Utah, provide therapy.

With that funding now mostly spent, leaders in some states have tapped state funds or leaned on private donors to ensure mental health support continues.

Utah has not — and, at least according to one legislator, has no intention to do so.

Republican state Sen. Scott Sandall, a third-generation rancher and farmer who is the Executive Appropriations Committee vice chair, criticized Congress for creating a program with a one-time boost of money, saying that without ongoing funding it was destined to fail.

“The way they set it up,” he said, “was eventually to have it go away.”

The Salt Lake Tribune and ProPublica reached out to Gov. Spencer Cox — himself a farmer who has advocated for better mental health resources in the state. In 2022, he acknowledged in a Utah Farm Bureau article that poor mental health was a problem affecting the state’s farmers and said he hoped investments in rural mental health could better support the agriculture industry. His office did not respond to interview requests for this story.

Farmers in the United States are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population, according to the National Rural Health Association. Utah’s suicide rate has consistently been among the nation’s highest, and farmers and ranchers struggle with the volatility that comes with working in the dry mountain region. They die by suicide at the third-highest rate by vocation in the state, according to state data, behind miners and construction workers.

Fluctuating market prices, unpredictable weather and a stigma that farmers should be “tough” and can handle their mental stress themselves were constant pressures described by more than a dozen people The Tribune and ProPublica interviewed — farmers and ranchers, their families and those who support mental health programs for them.

The American Farm Bureau has emphasized in recent news releases that the Trump administration’s shifts in policy around tariffs and federal grant funding have increased the uncertainty faced by America’s farming communities — a population that overwhelmingly backed President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, according to an analysis by the nonprofit newsroom Investigate Midwest.

Trump acknowledged in his March speech to Congress that tariffs in particular may bring “a little bit of an adjustment period” for America’s farmers but said that he believes they will ultimately help by reducing competition from producers in other countries.

“Our farmers are going to have a field day right now,” Trump said. “So, to our farmers, have a lot of fun. I love you, too.”

Federal funding to support farmer mental health is tied up with ongoing debates over the Farm Bill, a sweeping package of legislation that Congress has been unable to move forward since it expired in 2023. The USDA said it will be ready to implement mental health programs if federal lawmakers appropriate more money for them.

Sandall, the state legislator, said he knows that the stress of working in an unpredictable industry like agriculture can cause anxiety and mental health challenges. But when he was presented with the data about the high suicide rates in Utah agricultural communities, he said he doesn’t think Utah lawmakers would be interested in funding a program intended to help one specific profession. There is “so much demand” for mental health support throughout the state, he said, adding that targeting certain professions would create a “battle for funding.”

“Whether they’re a mechanic,” he said, “or whether they’re a school teacher, or a doctor, or someone in agriculture, I just think it would be a little hard to start separating out and creating just mental health programs for individual industries.”

“We Carry the Burden”

The stress of owning a dairy fell on Mitch Hancock’s shoulders overnight after his father-in-law died by suicide in 2014. Hancock’s father-in-law hadn’t shared with his family that he was in crisis.

Mental health, Hancock said, isn’t a topic discussed often among farmers. “I think we struggle in quiet.”

For Hancock, too, there was no time for him to grieve. It was early August, and there were still two more cuttings of alfalfa that needed to be made, another month of harvesting corn and the daily needs of milking cows.

He had been involved with the dairy because his father-in-law had been hoping to transition into retirement, Hancock said. Still, “I had never driven a tractor,” he said. “Never driven a semi in harvest, never driven a chopper. Never done any of that. So it was very much, ‘Well, let’s figure it out as we go.’”

That was more than a decade ago. Hancock and his wife have run NooSun Dairy since on 2,400 acres of land in Box Elder County, where the snow-capped Wasatch Mountains stretch to the east and the Great Salt Lake can be seen past acres of fields and homes looking west.

When he speaks, Hancock is taciturn and straightforward, a trained civil engineer who takes a pragmatic approach to running the dairy farm. But he has new insight now into what his father-in-law faced, he said, a weight far heavier than just having a successful business. He has employees who need these jobs and neighbors who count on him to buy their crops to feed his cows.

“We carry the burden to make sure that we can take care of all of those around us like we always have,” he said, “even in times of low milk prices.”

But being able to pay the dairy’s bills can be challenging, Hancock said, because the price he can sell at can fluctuate. Milk price regulations are set by a complex government process that can cause prices to change as often as daily. When prices are volatile, Hancock said, “it’s hard to look past the doomsday.”

Like fluctuating market prices, farmers face other elements of their work they can’t control: the price of fertilizers and equipment, how much it rains or whether animals get sick. And their workdays are long.

In addition, in Utah and the arid West, farmers and ranchers worry about water, said Craig Buttars, the outgoing Utah Department of Agriculture and Food commissioner. In one recent year when rainfall was particularly scarce, he recalled, ranchers scrambled to find enough feed and had to haul water to cattle — many of which graze on remote public lands.

“That just added another level of stress,” he said. “It seems like those things can just add on to one another. And at some point, producers, sometimes they just feel like, ‘Why am I doing this?’”

Some farmers have also felt villainized by the public for their water use, including by a recent study that suggested that farmers need to cut back or stop growing altogether in order to help stop the shrinking of Utah’s Great Salt Lake. This takes a toll, said Caroline Hargraves, the marketing director with the state agriculture department. “I can’t tell you how often I hear people say that farmers should just quit. Like we shouldn’t even grow our own food,” she said. “Just really demonizing anyone for their water use.”

Chris Chambers is an alfalfa and hay farmer in northern Utah who sells his crop to local cattle producers. He said it’s frustrating to read online comments posted in response to news articles about declining lake levels from people who think farmers should give up their water rights or stop farming.

“It’s your livelihood,” he said. “Water is the key, and we’ve got the senior priority rights to use the water from the state of Utah. And now we’re bad guys for doing it? We feel like we’re doing a good service for feeding people.”

In Rural Utah, Few Therapists and More Guns

In a state that has consistently higher rates of self-reported depression than the rest of the United States, residents in rural areas — where many farmers and ranchers live — face unique challenges in getting help. In the two counties that have the highest amount of farmland in the state, each has about one therapist for every 550 people, according to County Health Rankings, which pulls data from the National Provider Identification registry. (The national ratio is one therapist for every 300 people.)

Without that type of specialized care, doctors in rural areas often rely only on prescription medications, said Tiffany McConkie, a rancher in northeastern Utah who also works as a nurse at a clinic in the town of Altamont, in a three-room medical office decorated with photos of sun-drenched farm landscapes. It’s where people can go for general medical care in their own town in the Uintah Basin, a rural area known for its oil production and agriculture.

But if someone is seeking behavioral health treatment from that same medical system, Uintah Basin Healthcare, the only two therapists on staff work at a larger medical clinic that’s about 20 miles away, according to the health care system’s online provider list.

McConkie said some people hesitate to ask for mental health care, telling her that they are afraid of being medicated or that health care workers will call the police and they’ll be put into a “mental home.”

“And that’s not the case,” she said. “We just want to get them the help they need.”

Where rural Utah lacks easy access to therapists, there is also an abundance of firearms — and a higher suicide rate compared with urban areas, according to a 2018 Harvard study. That study found that the elevated suicide rate in rural Utah is not because people there attempt suicide more often but because they are using guns, which are more lethal than other methods.

In the basin where McKonkie lives, the local state-run mental health clinic has responded to those statistics by focusing on gun safety, handing out gun locks and secure ammo boxes at gun shows. They also travel to oil fields to do suicide prevention trainings with workers, an effort to meet their most at-risk population — middle-aged men — where they are.

“It has required some creativity on our part,” said Catherine Jurado, who works at Northeastern Counseling Center, adding that being in a smaller rural area allows them better opportunities to create relationships. “Who else in the United States thinks, ‘I need to go to a beef expo to do suicide prevention?’”

Seeking a Way Forward

The shortfall in funding for farmer mental health has been going on for years. In 2008, Congress created the federal Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network but, for more than a decade, put no money into it. The network eventually was funded as part of the 2018 Farm Bill, but its annual $10 million covers the entire country across four regional offices and today generally does not support individual therapy.

Since the Farm Bill expired in September 2023, Congress has been unable to agree on a new legislative package, nor did it pass a proposed bill last year to give $5 million more in funding for the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network. Right now, the network has continued to be funded through temporary extensions.

When the pandemic-era funding injected a new surge of money at the state level in 2021, Utah’s agriculture department and Utah State University Extension — the state’s land-grant university — jumped at the opportunity.

The two organizations used some of the money at first for an educational podcast and online stress courses. And in 2023, they paid for therapy for about 240 farmers and ranchers. There are about 33,000 producers in Utah, according to 2022 Census of Agriculture data, most of whom work other jobs besides farming, which makes up nearly 3% of the state’s economy. As is the case throughout the United States, most Utah farms are family-run.

Buttars, the Utah agriculture department commissioner, said he was surprised by how many people sought the therapy vouchers.

“It really did wake me up to the number of people we have in the state, in our agricultural community, that felt the need for this type of program,” he said.

Dallin, with Utah State, said health care providers reported that those using the vouchers were improving, and that they were receiving positive feedback from those who went to therapy. But the money ran out more than a year ago, and the program has been halted.

In the absence of federal funds, some states have locked in state funding or private donations to keep supporting their farmers.

In Michigan, a program offering free therapy and online stress courses has been in place for nearly a decade, according to Remington Rice with Michigan State University Extension. He said state agriculture leaders advocated for the program after seeing distress among dairy farmers.

“Agriculture is a pillar of society,” Rice said. “No farmers, no food. … And so we need to address an issue that threatens our food supply.”

More recently, he said, a private business — a company that makes cherry products — reached out to donate a portion of its sales to help pay for therapy.

In Washington, a private donor — from a farming family who lost someone to suicide — has provided funding for no-cost therapy sessions for farmers and ranchers, said Don McMoran, who works at Washington State University Extension and is the Western regional lead for the national Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network.

In Utah, those who ran the therapy voucher program have been hesitant to approach lawmakers for state support.

Hargraves, with the state’s agriculture department, said it can be tough to get state legislators to fund new programs. And Dallin said his office has shied away from approaching legislators because the money would be earmarked as part of the higher education budget due to its association with the university. Utah’s legislative leadership has cut $60 million in funding from the public higher education system this year — the biggest budget cut to schools here in at least a decade.

Since the therapy voucher program ended, USU Extension has continued to run awareness campaigns encouraging farmers to invest in their mental health care. And the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food has also introduced mental health workshops into some certifications and courses that farmers and ranchers enroll in.

Dallin said his office has also been working with the University of Utah — a health research university that runs its own hospital system — to try to collect survey data to prove the voucher program’s effectiveness as they try to drum up more money in the future. He said he hopes by partnering, they can lean on the other university’s medical expertise and designation as a health care system.

“I honestly believe,” he said, “that if the government or if some organization were to give us a million dollars a year, I think we could spend it.”