Ep. 45 - The Epidemic of Farmer Burnout

Are you feeling a bit overwhelmed by your summer garden? The overwhelm you may be feeling in the garden is a good indication that you’ve pushed yourself pretty far in terms of your commitment to your garden, the hard work you’ve put in, and you may be having difficulty managing the stress that hits in the middle of the heaviest part of the harvest when it seems like everything needs to be done at once and NOTHING is cooperating.

Unless you are relying on your garden for all of your family’s sustenance, that it’s okay to have those failures in the garden. It’s supposed to be something you enjoy. And once you get through those few weeks of frustration and exhaustion, hopefully you’ll be able to look back and see everything you gained from that garden and happily be able to move forward into the cooler fall season with your head held high.

Now, what if your garden was your job? What if it was the way you fed your family, both figuratively and literally. How you paid the bills. What if your garden was a family legacy passed on to you or one you wanted to pass on to your children? What if paying your mortgage or your rent relied on how well you did in the garden?

That’s the life of a farmer. The people who put the food on our tables and in our grocery stores contend with this stress on this level every single season. As consumers, we don’t see it. But stop for a minute and think about the number of items on the grocery store shelves. Think about the variety of foods we get to choose from. Whether it’s a fruit or vegetable, a bean or a grain, a meat or an egg, a dairy product or a boxed good, every single item on those shelves has a component that needed to be grown and cared for by somebody. And those somebody’s are burning out.

This episode we talk about the epidemic of farmer burnout, how prevalent it is, what's causing it, and what we can do about it.

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Resources:

Midwest farmers face a crisis. Hundreds are dying by suicide.

Farmer Burnout in Canada

Frequency of Burnout in the Swiss farming sector

Burnout and hopelessness among farmers: The Farmers Stressors Inventory

Burn-out an "occupational phenomenon": International Classification of Diseases

Burnout Prevention and Treatment

5 ways to detect and combat burnout

Food Prices and Spending

How Much Should I Spend on Groceries?

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