Posted on 04/16/2015 1:23:57 PM PDT by smokingfrog
Mona Lee Brock went into the office early that morning, as she always did, when she received a panicked phone call. The telephones in the crisis center were lighting up all over the place, as was common. This particular call was from a farmer’s wife. A day prior, the farmer had spoken to Brock and agreed not to hurt himself, but now his wife couldn’t find him. And she was afraid. Brock asked where the farmer kept his .410 shotgun.
It was the height of the ’80s farm crisis, one of the greatest economic turmoils since the Great Depression. Drought and defaulted loans left hundreds of thousands of farmers broke. Many farmers became homeless or worse yet, turned to suicide.
Brock visited their home later that morning. The farmer’s wife stayed inside the house while Brock went to investigate where her husband might be. She found him in the driveway, at the left rear wheel of his truck. He had already shot himself in the head.
“It just leaves you speechless,” Brock says, “You just forget to breathe, you forget to live.”
It’s been three decades since the farm crisis swept the country, but suicide rates among farmers are still high — the second highest of any job right now, in fact. According to a recent study of workplace suicides between 2003 and 2010 published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, jobs with the highest suicide rates include “protective service occupations” like police officers and firefighters, with 5.3 suicides for every 1 million workers.
(Excerpt) Read more at grist.org ...
For later
I don’t know about farmer suicides but I would think that they would be the most highly stressed people in this country.......
What would farmer and military related suicides have in common?
I am sure this has been going on for a long time. When my dad was a boy growing up in Iowa he mentioned a lot of times they were found hanging in the barn.
In fact he found a relative that same way when he was just a kid.
I guess its the hard lifestyle that does it...
This is something that should be encouraged. If all of the farmers kill themselves then they won’t be around to pollute all of the water with fertilizer and pesticides and all of the forests they cut down can regrow on the old farm land. And all will be good again (SARCASM, but probably the radical city bred envrionmentalist true thought, because they think food comes from the grocery store and have no idea the it begins with farmers.)
With all the write offs and subsides and burning corn for fuel you’d think they’d be on easy street.
There is also the untold zillions of dollars in welfare payments that would stop flowing their way...
Not when the government is out to steal your land or they are in cahoots with developers and tax you out of it so they can parcel it up. Farming now a days takes lost of capital to get a crop out (ranching the same). Land is not cheap, implements are not cheap, there are regulations, EPA down you neck, competition from Big Ag, etc...
It is not the farming your grandparents and before did where you could be self sufficient.
I really don't see people clamoring to get into that line of work here in the midwest, but I suppose it's possible.
I don’t know.
Plan B worked out fine though as he turned the apple orchid into a housing development and retired wealthy.
Not comparing their work to farmers, but a lot of people here in NJ seem to be walking in front of trains recently. I believe it is caused by losing good jobs in an economy where they’ve become practically impossible to replace (in the most expensive region in the country). The guy thinks about his mortgage, looks at his potential earnings as a Wal-MArt greeter, and decides the best thing he can do for his family is die so they can maintain their lifestyle a while longer on the insurance proceeds...
I’m sure it’s a very tough business for the most part.
If you own a typical business and it fails, you can just declare bankruptcy, walk-away and try to start over. If you are a farmer and you fail, it’s your business, home, property and family all wrapped-up into one big disaster.
If you didn't inherit the land, you can't afford to become a farmer.
wow
Bookmark
I don’t know.
Wouldn’t you suppose it to be the government?
How sad. How can people not know that Christie has not improve this state one iota? And yet, my conservative friends in North Carolina love him...
Going on 4 years (11/01/11) since I closed my Family Farm business, and the 20ac primary property/bldgs remain unsold, tying up near everything I had. Sucks to be sure.
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