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INVESTIGATOR: VanderWoude, M.; Wilner, SE, .

PERFORMING INSTITUTION:
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE-DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, MARKETS & FOOD
25 CAPITOL ST FL 2
CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE 033016312

STATE OF NH FARM AND RANCH STRESS ASSISTANCE NETWORK-COLLABORATING TO ADDRESS AND REDUCE FARMER MENTAL HEALTH AND STRESS

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Farmer mental health challenges are rising problems that can end in loss of life, reduced ability to perform farm duties, lower quality of life for farmer and their families, loss of farms, lost profits, bankruptcies, and a host of other significant issues. Women, BIPOC, and queer farmers in rural communities have been found to have a higher incidence of mental health challenges as a result of being isolated and lacking support structures common to other farmer groups.These facts have led to the allocation of state and federal resources, such as this NIFA funding opportunity. This need has also led to the formation of support groups and the newly established focus of existing agricultural agencies and organizations on farmer mental health topics.The benefit of farms and a sustainable agricultural economy have been well documented and include lower taxes to the public, greater tourism, vibrant rural communities, sustainable food chains, preservation of open spaces, support to numerous businesses such as tractor dealers, mechanics, fertilizer vendors, large animal veterinarians, and so on. It is an absolute benefit to society to have successful farms dot the landscape of rural communities.Yet, rising input costs, low financial management skills, shrinking profits, inability to find and retain labor, climate changes, and a host of other factors have resulted in unsustainable levels of anxiety, suicide, and mental health afflictions for farmers nationwide, and certainly throughout the Northeastern United States.Our program seeks to address farmer mental health issues through a multi-pronged approach. One aspect of our project is to develop educational resources that will be housed in resource libraries. We will have three resource libraries situated on the websites of the NH Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food, UNH Cooperative Extension, and NH Farm Bureau. These resource libraries will contain podcasts, videos, fact sheets, cost calculators, tip sheets, and other relevant resources that address mental health and root causes of mental health distress for farmers.We will further offer skill building through education, direct technical assistance, and farmer peer-to-peer support systems. Educational activities will include workshops (virtual and in-person), conference sessions (virtual and in-person), podcasts, videos, fact sheets, newsletter articles, social media posts, and radio spots.Educational topics include family communications, methods for reducing stress, managing farm labor, farm crisis management, electronic record keeping, financial statements, financial decision making, peer-to-peer support groups, recognizing signs of stress, de-escalating conflict, holding difficult conversations, when to call a professional, common farm legal issues, and a host of other needs-based topics.One unique opportunity this funding allows is to pay for direct technical assistance for farmers for services such as legal, tax planning, succession planning, financial analysis, credit counseling, therapy and other topics that address root causes of stress. This is a rare and wildly impactful opportunity for farmers. We will provide these services by contracting with vendors and paying them set fees to engage and work with farmers. This will assist farmers and preclude wasted resources.Our program not only builds the skills of farmers in ways that can result in reducing their stress or teaching them how to manage or prevent this, but we also seek to build the skills of the agricultural service providers who assist farmers. We are confident in this targeted approach to these audience groups.A concerted effort to inform both farmers and agricultural service providers about the opportunities available in this project will be done through multiple outreach efforts. These efforts will include radio ads, social media campaigns, newsletter articles, articles in regional publications, in-person visits, and meetings with professional service organizations and relevant agencies.This project also puts a targeted effort on reaching underserved audiences of women, BIPOC and queer farmers. Special outreach will be made to inform these groups about the opportunities available to all farmers in NH and to encourage them to utilize the resources and to also form peer support groups.In closing, this project has, and will continue, to unite NH agricultural agencies and organizations to come together in a collaborative manner to address farmer mental health, stress, and suicide prevention. The uniting of these groups will pay dividends well beyond this project. It will add an efficiency to further collaborative efforts that will benefit the NH agricultural community.

OBJECTIVES: Goal 1 - Raise Awareness of Farmer Mental Health Resources Available for Assistance to the Agricultural CommunityObjective 1 - Increase awareness of resources. Utilize social media, print media, radio ads and sessions at educational events. Members of the agricultural community will increase their knowledge of resources available to assist them in addressing the root cause of some of their mental health issues.Objective 2 - Utilize resources. Members of the agricultural community will access resources to address legal, financial, mental health, succession planning, and other root cause topics that result in stress, anxiety, and mental health issues.Objective 3 - Peer-to-peer farm support networks. These peer-to-peer networks will be set up to support farmers in a safe and effective manner, allowing farmers to engage with trusted others who can relate to their situations.Goal 2 - Work to De-stigmatize Farmer Mental Health IssuesObjective 1 - Utilizing social media and radio ads, members of the agricultural community will increase their knowledge of the prevalence of farm mental health issues, common root causes, and simple ways to address these. We will also inform community members of resources available to assist them.Goal 3 - Increase Knowledge and Skills in Areas Linked to Farmer Stress and Mental HealthObjective 1 - Conduct educational training for farmers, both distance-based and in-person, that address family communications, stress reduction, crisis management, financial decision-making, legal, and other root cause topics.Objective 2 - Conduct educational training for agricultural service providers, both distance-based and in-person, that address recognizing signs of stress, de-escalating conflict, having difficult conversation, and some common legal stressors and other relevant topics.Objective 3 - Conduct educational training for underserved farm audiences focusing on women, BIPOC and Queer farmer communities.Goal 4 - Provide Direct Support to Farmers to Address Mental Health Problems and Root CausesObjective 1 - Register vendors who can deliver direct assistance to farmers in therapy, financial analysis and management, tax resolution ad planning, succession planning, legal assistance, and related topics.Objective 2 - Link farmers to service providers so they can access services and reduce their mental health stressors.Goal 5 - Develop Resources and Populate a Resource LibraryObjective 1 - Develop podcasts, tip sheets, newsletter articles, videos, calculators, and other educational tools and resources farmers and agricultural service providers can access and utilize.Objective 2 - Create web spaces at three organizations: NH Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food, UNH Cooperative Extension, and NH Farm Bureau. These will house the educational resources described above.Objective 3 - Utilizing social media, print media, radio ads and sessions at educational events, members of the agricultural community will increase their knowledge of resources available to assist them in addressing the root cause of some of their mental health issues.

APPROACH: As described in previous sections, multiple efforts will be used to reach our target audiences. These are described below:Goal 1 - Raise Awareness of Farmer Mental Health Resources Available for Assistance to the Agricultural CommunityGoal 2 - Work to De-stigmatize Farmer Mental Health IssuesTo achieve the above goals and objectives we will utilize social media, radio spots, articles in newsletters of multiple organizations and all major regional farm publications. We will further hold information sessions at agricultural events hosted by a large array of farming organizations and agencies. Additionally, the educational materials and events will further add to fulfilling the above goals and objectives.Goal 3 - Increase Knowledge and Skills in Areas Linked to Farmer Stress and Mental HealthTo achieve the above goals and objectives we will conduct on-line and in-person workshops, deliver sessions at conferences, deploy educational podcasts and video series, and feature articles in local publications.To achieve our diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, we will engage with members of the women, BIPOC and Queer farming communities to help educate agricultural service providers on their preferred learning environments, styles, and needs.Goal 4 - Provide Direct Support to Farmers to Address Mental Health Problems and Root CausesTo achieve Goal 4 above, we will advertise through all our available networks, for vendors relative to the services we are seeking to support farmers. Thus, we will reach out to mental health professionals, agricultural lenders, agricultural organizations who provide mediation, financial analysis, work in succession planning, etc. We will do the same with the legal community. Vendors will be registered through the appropriate paperwork (W9s, 1009s, independent contractor forms, etc.) and they will be reimbursed for their services for farmers relative to this grant.We will collect non-private, non-confidential data including at least the farmers' names, hours of service provided, and type of service provided. Relevant, non-confidential outcomes and impacts will also be collected as appropriate.We will utilize social media, radio, newsletter articles, site visits, infomercials at agricultural events, and other means to advertise these opportunities.We have budgeted for specific targeted outreach to women, queer, and BIPOC farmers.Goal 5 - Develop Resources and Populate a Resource LibraryTo achieve Goal 5 above, we will house all educational products developed on a specific Farmer, Rancher, Stress Assistance Network page on the following websites: UNH Cooperative Extension, NH Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food, and NH Farm Bureau. Additional organizations may be used as well. The submitted budget provides funds to create and populate a webpage on these sites.We will utilize social media, radio, newsletter articles, site visits, infomercials at agricultural events, and other means to advertise these resource libraries.Evaluation Methods:We recognize that the nature of the subject and our approaches will make collecting data challenging for some portions.To measure the impact of outreach efforts to alert farmers about educational and direct technical assistance resources, we will analyze website analytics. This will include resources downloaded, time spent per page, number of resources opened, unique views, referred links, and search engine terms.We will also know from the service providers' vouchers how many farms with whom they worked, the number of hours of service they delivered, and the topics (to the extent possible) upon which they focused. This data will allow us to redirect funds if a specific category or categories have greater need. For example, if financial analysis and therapist visits have higher demand than tax planning or legal assistance, we can re-direct efforts to meet the needs.To measure the impact of educational programs, we will ask all educators to conduct a pre-post evaluation tool that will allow us to assess increases in knowledge, skills, attitude changes and awareness. The tool will further have a section to document farmer and/or agricultural service provider intentions for actions and/or behavior changes. This data will let us document whether the intended impacts of our efforts were met. Finally, we will ask program participants what additional resources or assistance they need to achieve their intended actions. This will also help us deploy targeted assistance to the growers and agricultural service providers.We will conduct surveys, using electronic, anonymous methods at the end of the grant cycle. This survey will be sent to all educational program participants, participants who engaged with service providers, and participants who provided us their contact information in other manners. The electronic, anonymous, volunteer survey will collect information on actions taken as a result of this project, knowledge and skills gained, and impact to the individual completing the survey. Further, the survey will ask for feedback on how to address remaining needs, as well as other issues that would build farmer mental health and resilience.The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion portions of this project will receive targeted evaluation to assess if we are successful in meeting the needs of the women, BIPOC, and Queer farming communities. Focus groups and/or key informant interviews will be conducted with members of these communities. We will further work with educational point people to interview them and determine outcomes, impacts, and programmatic changes throughout the project.

PROGRESS: 2021/09 TO 2023/08
Target Audience:The target audiences for this project included New Hampshire's agricultural producers, workers, and their families. Additionally agricultural service providers were also targeted for education on how to better serve the producers in the state. This project also put intentional efforts into reaching underserved audiences including women, BIPOC and queer farmer communities. We funded BIPOC Farmer and Queer Farmer coordinators to do outreach that informed these communities about the opportunities available and to encourage them in utilizing these resources. The coordinators also helped form peer support groups. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The training programs and resources provided are described in previous sections, below is a summary. 23 New American farmers have received training in tax preparation, conflict resolution, family communication, and communication with collaborating farmers. Seven events were offered for the Queer Farmers community with a combined 33 people attending these events. Nine members of the NH Queer Farmer community joined another 15 farmers outside NH to participate in a six-week whole farm planning with Holistic Management online course. Farm Stress and Resiliency Workshop - This program utilized the Michigan State University self-paced Rural Resilience online course as pre-workshop homework. Participants then came together to build skills in: Recognizing signs and symptoms of anxiety, stress, and depression. Gaining knowledge in how to use a Mental Health action plan to have a conversation with someone experiencing a Mental Health challenge or crisis. Practiced techniques to build conversation skills. Learned several two-minute stress relievers you can put into practice for yourself and to share with others. Family Communication and Conflict Resolution/Management Techniques. This program trained 10 agricultural service providers over three sessions in different communication styles, different forms of conflict, how to manage or prevent conflict and other skills service providers could use with farmers. Two ergonomic workshops educating 27 farmers on how to hold farm tools and use one's body to reduce fatigue and injuries. Lastly, we have podcasts, fact sheets and videos that allowed farmers and agricultural service providers to build their capacity in farm legal topics on their own. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results will be disseminated in 2024 after they are collated and have the appropriate graphics added. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

IMPACT: 2021/09 TO 2023/08
What was accomplished under these goals? Goal 1 Created a website that connects farmers with mental health resources. This website also houses our resource library. The website can be found at https://extension.unh.edu/farmer-stress From 11/1/21 to 11/3/23, the website received 5,462 views by 4,186users. Created materials to help destigmatize farmer stress and educate farmers on managing stress and suicide prevention. Articles highlighting the project have been written and disseminated throughout NH. These include: The UNH Extension magazinedescribed the project and communicated how farmers can tap into these resources. The magazine has a print run of 2,000, with all 428 NH state Legislators receiving a copy, as well as extension advisory council members and UNHLeadership and Deans. The online web-based version had over 80 unique views. NH Farm Bureau quarterly newspaper with a print run of 3,500 included a FRSAN cover story in their July/August 2022 issue. The article highlighted a multi-generation farm utilizing the farm stress program and the impact it has had on their mental health and the value it has brought to the farming community in NH. A blog post entitled "understanding farm stress" was posted to the UNH Extension website and can be found at https://extension.unh.edu/blog/2022/04/understanding-farm-stress. Created farmer support networks in which a total of 119 NH farmers joined. Of these, 23 were BIPOC farmers (New Americans) and 33 were part of the NH queer farming community. Through these networks participants reported they learned about program resources, met new farmers, and felt supported by a community of their peers. Developed atrifold brochure and printed 2,000 copies that were distributed statewide at agricultural events. These brochures connected growers to program resources and worked to destigmatize farmer mental health and suicide. Created a social media campaign that launched in November of 2022 and continued through the duration of the project, 8/31/23. Total reach for the campaing was over 900,000. Worked with our partner organizations and educated our collective staff members about program resources and opportunities for farmers in their networks. Goal 2 Designed an outreach campaign that included: 34 posts on NH Farm Bureau's Facebook pages - focusing on resources available through our program, and topics to help de-stigmatize mental health distress and suicide prevention. These posts reached a combined total 6,156 viewers. 13 articles in NH Farm Bureau's electronic newsletter entitled "The Post" which is sent to 1,605 NH farm families. 9 articles in the NH Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food weekly electronic newsletter entitled, "The Weekly Market Bulletin "which reaches close to 2,000 readers. 3 articles in the printed NH Farm Bureau Newsletter entitled, "The Communicator" which is sent to 3,077 recipients. Goal 3 UNH Cooperative Extension staff conducted numerous one-on-one farm visits. Provided training for 23 New American farmers in tax preparation, conflict resolution, family communication, and communication with collaborating farmers. 7 events were offered for the Queer Farmers community with a combined 33 people attending these events. 9 members of the NH Queer Farmer community joined another 15 farmers outside NH to participate in a six-week whole farm planning with Holistic Management online course. Conducted a Farm Stress and Resiliency Workshop. This program utilized the Michigan State University self-paced Rural Resilience online course as pre-workshop homework. Participants then came together to build skills in the following areas: Recognizing signs and symptoms of anxiety, stress, and depression. Gaining knowledge in how to use a Mental Health action plan to have a conversation with someone experiencing a Mental Health challenge or crisis. Practiced techniques to build conversation skills. Learned two-minute stress relievers you can put into practice for yourself and to share with others. 2 ergonomic workshops educating 27 farmers on how to hold farm tools and use one's body to reduce fatigue and injuries were conducted on two farms in the state. A program entitled, "Family Communication and Conflict Resolution/Management Techniques" trained 10 agservice providers over three sessions. Goal 4 This goal was one of the core elements of our program. Our accomplishments are as follows: Recruited and on-boarded 14 law offices to engage with NH farmers. This is alone is a valued outcome, as was the work they did. Prior, there were few lawyers well versed in aglegal issues and many farmers did not know how to find lawyers who understood their needs. Recruited and onboarded two major tax providers to assist with advising on tax issues germane to ag, including: tax impacts of farm transfer methods, tax topics relative to different business structures, financial record keeping, and other requested topics. Onboarded four financial agservice providers to assist farmers in gaining a deep understanding of their operation's financial health and how to make changes to improve farmers' situations. Recruited and on-boarded 16 mental health providers to work with farmers. This too was a wonderful outcome, as these therapists now understand the unique stressors farmers encounter. Established and supported two farmer-to-farmer support networks in the state. Farmers in these networks came together to offer support to each other for mental health and quality of life topics. A NH BIPOC Farmer community was formed, and its members engaged in mental health therapy, tax planning education, and business planning. A NH Queer Farmers community was formed, and some members engaged in mental health as well as other professional development. The following number of farmers utilized the services offered in this program: 52 farmers from 50 farms utilized counseling/therapy services. These farmers engaged with 16 NH mental health businesses to receive 580 therapy sessions. 32 farm families visited with lawyers. Twenty sevenfarm families completed trusts/wills/end of life documents. 20 farms completed new business formations, including operating agreements and registration with the Secretary of State. 9 farms began or completed farm asset transfer or changes to their businesses as part of succession planning. 3 farms worked with lawyers to address neighbor conflicts, and 2 farms engaged with lawyers to develop leases and easements for access to farmland. 12 farms utilized tax advisors to address tax issues or engage in tax planning for their operations, increasing their understanding and employing new strategies. 15 farms had an in-depth financial health analysis to understand how to increase their profitability and develop financial management plans to drive new, implemented decisions. 5 farms had a farm appraiser provide them with information for the sale of their farm to successors. Goal 5 The following resources were produced for this project: Produced 18 podcasts and 12 fact sheets on legal topics for which NH farmers requested information. Produced 8 legal videos to help farmers understand trusts, how to transfer farm assets, wills and end of life documents, Medicaid lookback and disqualification period, probate courts, how to protect farm assets in divorces, and limited liability companies. Utilized a subscription for five agservice providers to access lawyers to get answers to legal questions. Provided the opportunity for up to 100 farmers to utilize the Farm Commons legal information portal where they could access articles, podcasts, ask legal questions, and attend legal educational events. Thirty-onefarmers utilized this resource/opportunity. Objective 2 - This objective changed. Our project team felt it was less confusing if we had a single website and drove all farmers to that one place; so, we housed all resources at UNH Cooperative Extension. This allowed for consistent and accurate communication for the duration of the project.

PUBLICATIONS (not previously reported): 2021/09 TO 2023/08
No publications reported this period.