Minnesota Built a Rural Therapy Program for Farmers Struggling to Cope

Giving Compass' Take:

• This article highlighted at The Counter discusses Minnesota’s state legislature which has invested in a unique, heavily utilized Rural Mental Health Outreach program for farmers. 

• How can other states replicate this successful program? What have been the previous challenges with trying to provide mental health for farmers? 

• Read more about the impact of COVID-19 on farmers. 

When Pam Uhlenkamp separated from her husband earlier this year, she knew the person to call.

As a farm business management instructor, Uhlenkamp mentors farmers one-on-one. When she notices they’re stressed, she refers them to the man who’s been the go-to counselor for Minnesota farmers for decades. The morning after the separation, she called him, and, by the afternoon, she sat opposite Ted Matthews.

“Today sucks. Tomorrow is going to suck. The next three weeks are going to suck,” Uhlenkamp remembered Matthews telling her in their first session.

“He was very honest with me,” she said. “Sometimes in life you kind of need the two-by-four across the head that says, ‘Yep, this is awful and this is the reality.’”

The approach worked for Uhlenkamp, who credits Matthews with improving her mental condition. Farmers struggling with stress have turned to him, too. Matthews takes calls at all hours, including weekends, though he said he’s so passionate for the work that he barely notices the hours he puts in.

“I’m in my office before 7 every morning, five days a week and then on Saturdays I’ll see people who can’t see me during the week, and I’ll take calls on Sundays,” Matthews, 73, said. (During one 45-minute interview, six people called him, he said.)

Handling the growing number of farmers who seek counseling as climate change and trade wars uproot their lives requires working around the clock, he said. A January study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that farmers are among the most likely to die by suicide, compared to other occupations. USA Today and Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting found that hundreds of farmers in Midwestern states have died by suicide in the past few years.