This program is funded through a farm and ranch Stress Assistance Network Grant provided by the United States Department of Agriculture and administered by the Arkansas Department of Agriculture.

Hello and welcome to this special broadcast growing hope combating stress and agriculture.

The stress farmers and ranchers face everyday can be overwhelming and the numbers show it.

Farmers and ranchers fall into one of the top three occupations for suicide.

According to the CDC.

And that's what we're going to talk about tonight.

Stress and the agriculture industry.

We will have two segments tonight and joining me for the first segment.

We have two people who are very familiar with the stress of farm life.

Rebecca Simon is an instructor of family life and early childhood at the University of Arkansas.

System division of agriculture.

Also with me is Jessica Angel.

She is a Cleburne County extension agent of family and consumer science for the University of Arkansas.

System division of agriculture.

Ladies, thank you so much for being here.

And I thank you for having you both come from a farming farming families.

Yeah, yes, let's jump right into this.

I'm married to a farmer, multi generational farmer and my dad had cattle growing up, but it was until I moved out to my husband's family farm that I really was.

I guess, baptized by fire in regards to that.

So, so I learned a lot from him and I learned a lot about cattle.

And Jessica, what about you?

I'm a fourth generation farmer.

My dad grew up in court and so Arkansas, where we did rowcrop pasture.

His dad had dairy cattle.

And then my mom's father had was in the livestock industry owning Sale Barn.

So my mom always told me that agriculture has always been in my blood and it always will always will be absolutely.

So obviously you are very very into this.

Not only.

Your past would also you both work for for the state, let's talk about some of those stressors that that farmers deal with everyday.

Some of some that we obviously know about, and some that may be a surprise to some of our viewers tonight.

Well, I think the thing that you can, that is a stressor is the rising cost, production cost and taking.

You know, taking your cattle to get them processed, the processing fees that they increase, fuel prices, fertilizer prices and just operating costs alone could be a big stressor.

Yeah, also if you're a family farming operation, you know there can be good stress and bad stress in regards to working with those family members.

Then also think that there might also be some stressors in regards to your health and staying healthy on the farm.

And if there's any accidents, those are stressors as well.

You know another thing too, that we're seeing is as a farmer and rowcrop, we are constantly looking for inputs and so that is including labor so you know.

Currently, right now there's a program where farmers are using to bring in laborers from different countries, and so they're here on a 10 month program, and so that is really huge because where I'm from we have to really kind of navigate the waters.

And when I say navigate the waters, I'm talking about the Black River and so currently, right now I have property that is not being planted yet where it would be this time last year, but due to the flooding that we've recently had and all the rain.

We just don't have a crop in the ground and so we are looking at planning rice and the window for us is getting pretty pretty thin.

This week.

Should be the last week and so that's another thing with harvest is planting season and harvesting go hand in hand?

And if you don't have the laborer to do that it just makes it a lot more stressful as well.

As you know parts, so farmers right now might be struggling to find parts for their tractors or for their combines and you just really have to take what you can get in that aspect and basically.

How what you can and it might be market.

It might be higher and then another stressor that Rebecca and I were talking about earlier was just the market fluctuation process and making sure that you know.

How they the AG watch weekly or daily updates is you have to be mindful of that and making sure that you get the most for your dollar.

You know this time last year I was talking to my farmer Aaron Turner and he mentioned that it cost $15.00 that he had an input and now it's 45 and with gas prices and fertilizer prices it's astronomical at what these farmers are having to go through.

And we direct market a lot of our beef off of the farm and so.

You've got your processing fee cost, but then you also have to figure out what process do you want to sell your fabricated animal out for and so do you really want to charge as much as you need to in order to make some type of profit or break?

Even we had storms a few weeks ago.

We also had a tornado a few years ago and we suffered a tremendous loss to our outbuildings and our, you know our cattle operation.

And so rebuilding from that is a stressor and rebuilding from you know, sustaining or.

Sorry we had hail damage and so trying to repair all of our structures that had been damaged in that storm.

That's a that's a stressor as well.

I think what we are seeing my parents for example back in 1976 they planted a crop.

They took the IT was it was soybeans and they took it to basically put it at the grain bins and that company did not pay my parents and they went bankrupt.

So my parents not got.

Did not get paid for their soybeans that year.

My parents were married.

Just got married.

Just built a house and they didn't know they were going to make their payments so my dad ended up having to drive a grain truck from Grubbs, Arkansas to Texas and back in order to make the payments and so I feel they might be more emphasized now than you know.

Back then you had the newspaper you didn't have Internet, especially where we're at.

We did not have Internet landline phones.

Things like that, so it was harder communication wise, whereas we have different media outlets.

Now that we can, we can use and I think.

I think that we're it might be a different type of stress, but we're still dealing with the Mother Nature.

We're still dealing with those prices, you know.

Cotton might be high one day and it might drop the next, and so that's something that you have to be mindful of and and I know that that's a stressor in and of itself.

I've seen my parents growing up and.

They didn't show it to me, but now that I'm older I didn't know that we struggled a whole lot and so I'm hearing these stories that my mom was telling me.

Has made me very more mindful and very more appreciative because they stayed up at night when I didn't know that.

And so in order to put a roof over my head, well, let's talk about some of those ways that that our parents and grandparents and great grandparents and and even now managing stress and and coping with it.

And you you brought it up just now.

Like a lot of times, and that's kind of what we're talking about.

Tonight is, oh, we have to hide it.

Have to I can't leave I'm I'm strong I'm a rock I can't let someone know that I'm stressing or I'm I'm worrying over something.

Hey that's what we're here to talk about and so let's talk about coping with some of those stresses what what's healthy, what?

What do people do?

What do people need to do?

Let's talk a little bit about that.

I think coping healthy coping mechanisms would be meditation, journaling, figuring out what works best for you that could be exercised eating well, it could be finding that other farmer or other you know someone that you can talk to.

There's a common bond there.

I think that those are some positive coping mechanisms, you know, hobbies, what do you like to do in your spare time?

Even you know if that's taking that five minute?

Break in the morning or during the day just to kind of reflect on yourself and focus on yourself because the farmer has to be the farmer has to be healthy.

Not just here but here as well.

So in order to be sustainable, you know farmers got to be sustainable too as well.

And you know, coming from my my background and eating a well balanced meal, I know that's kind of hard because farmers are kind of really on the go.

It's a 24/7 job and you know, growing up.

Farmers a lot of times they they'll miss out things with their families because they're trying to.

They're turning off rice wells.

They're plowing.

They're in the fields and not just that, but cattle.

You know, it's hard to.

It's hard to take a vacation.

Yeah, you don't.

And so a very if if you do take a vacation, it's probably about an hour or two away, so it's very dependable people to take care of your cattle and and just your property in general.

But making sure that.

That family time with you know spending take that time out and enjoy your kids ball games because those don't come back and so spending that quality time.

I know it's stressful but that's another stress relief.

Maybe it's hiking, maybe we have.

We live in the natural state.

We have great hiking trails.

We have great outdoors for people to go to and and enjoy.

We have lakes and that's what I know we're rural here in Arkansas, but we have so many different avenues for stress relievers that we can really capitalize on farm.

The rest comes in many forms and one that is nearly universal is financial stress.

We visited with Adam Chappell of Chapel Farms and talked about their regenerative farming method.

He began using to reduce financial costs and substantially decrease the stress in his life.

Form in cotton plant, Arkansas with my brother Sith.

Both kind of went off to college and in pursuit of something besides egg and just ended up back here, you know.

So it's just one of those things you think you want to get away from it till you actually do.

My family has been formed in this area for little 4 generations.

Our great grandfather formed here on both of my dad's parents side, so we've been in this area for a long time.

We're looking for a way to control weeds without spending more money, because everywhere we turn, you know the answer was more herbicide or more tillager.

There was always a more attached to something that was actually making things worse.

We had to do something different because what we were doing wasn't paying the bills.

I was youtubing organic farmers because I knew they couldn't use herbicide and but I found this guy that was growing pumpkins in cereal rye.

I mean it was just amazing when he was doing that.

That was in 2009 we planted our first cover crop that was definitely a turning point for the farm because we were at the edge of the Cliff.

You know financially we just stayed on the same path we were on.

We've been bankrupt.

You know we'd be done farming.

You know we don't have to irrigate near as often as we used to.

That wasn't something we were looking for.

It's just something we noticed.

Kind of the same thing with the fertility of P&K is a huge expense for farmers.

We don't don't apply any anymore.

We lean on compost that we make ourselves and we hadn't lost any ground.

Actually, we we've gained ground, we've actually increased those availability levels.

You know, when we saw tests.

We don't have to spray fungicides as often.

We don't spray insecticides as often and I think that has a lot to do with the insect diversity and and stuff that we're seeing.

Just keeping those pests in check.

You know we never saw earthworms here before.

In the in the fields and now they're everywhere.

And if you've got those in your fields, you're you're getting a lot of free access to nutrients that you wouldn't normally.

So we're we're healing it up around here.

It's just taking time.

Former stress and you know former suicides and things like that.

I mean, that's a serious problem and it's a problem that's tied back.

Directly to the economic environment that farmers are in constantly.

We would be so far behind right now this year if we were still forming like we used to because we would have had to rebuild all our beds and we would had so many more trips to make.

You know, one of the things that I like about this system is cost less to do and doesn't take near the time employees and horsepower.

That's been a huge plus for for me and our family in general so.

Me and some other farmers.

We started the Arkansas Soil Health Alliance fear of farmer wanting to try cover crops or whatever, but you don't know where to start or you run into a problem.

You know we we try to just be a resource for folks if if they want it.

Chances are if you have hit a problem or can't figure out how to do something, somebody in that group is run into that same issue you know and and can offer some help.

And continuing this conversation, Rebecca, I want to talk about managing the financial stresses of farming and ranching.

Unfortunately or fortunately, my husband has left me in charge of our finances, so I will say that I know, you know, just figuring out what your monthly expenditures are following those basic financial management principles is what I typically do, so figuring out what's coming.

What's, you know, going out?

What are your fixed expenditures?

Also, what is coming in in regards to money so you know, we sell?

We direct market our beef.

We sell our beef and so monthly we have.

Income that comes in to cover any of our monthly fixed costs that we have.

I would also say communicating, figuring out what you know is important.

There are certain times of the year that we're going to buy fertilizer and we're going to buy a seed to plant and so budgeting for that.

Throughout the year.

I know that I will if I anticipate in the fall that we're going to have to buy those two things, then I in the spring, we'll set aside some money in a savings account and then be able to bring that out and bring that, you know, put that into the fund.

Whenever it's time to purchase any of those materials, so communication is important.

I had to my husband and I had to figure out our best communication practices between ourselves in regards to farm finances and so you know, sometimes it was.

I didn't want to have that conversation with him about hey, you know, we maybe don't need to buy this right now, but it always seems to work out where he's understanding of that.

And so a lot of it is that you know that open communication and then understanding.

That's coming in and going out and then setting a budget like.

I know that I have this amount to spend at this particular time and then if you anticipate that you're going to be over budget or you need so you need to cut some corners and you know figure out what you can't spend in that time frame and what you can.

That's also important.

The beauty of what we do on our farm in regards to the we, you know, direct market our cattle instead of taking them to the cell barn twice a year.

That way we have that monthly income instead of every six months, making it you know work in regards to budgeting.

Every six months we've got something coming in monthly.

So I would I would hope and think that most most families, no matter what industry they're in, they they have a budget and they communicate that.

I know it's a lot easier for easier for some people and and harder for some people.

But with so many varying factors in the farming like you budget this much for this, you know, feed or or you budget this much and then Mother Nature or or you know what you know, inflation or whatever or you know the virus.

All those things, whoa.

I wasn't expecting that.

So those type things that just come at you, how do you?

How do you then step forward and say OK, this happened and we were not expecting it?

This is how we're going to make up for it.

How do you deal with that stress?

I think a lot of that is just having that communication.

And if there are other revenue streams for income to come in on the farm, like if that means that you maybe cut your hay and sell to other individuals to other farmers than that.

Isn't that's a revenue stream and we also like we have savings, and so we're able to pull from that, but that's not always.

That's not always reality, but I think a lot of it is just figuring out where your other revenue streams can come from.

And if that is like I said, cutting hay or maybe even having to sell some of those cattle now with the intent of hopefully buying back.

I think that that is also a way that you can combat combat a little bit of that stress.

A lot of people are.

Just the past two years have have come to be very familiar with the word pivot and I think that that's a good word to bring up right now.

Jessica, what were you gonna say about?

Well, you know, kind of piggybacking off of Rebecca here.

A lot of Rd crop farmers will have dairy cattle or or some type of livestock to kind of kind of fluctuate that balance sheet a little bit better.

And that's usually during the winter.

So to help with that.

But again, with rising a lot of times.

Farmers, will you know, grow corn and they'll use that corn to feed their cattle or sell that to different markets.

And that is something that it's getting tougher and tougher and tougher because you rely on that so much that you have to make your payments.

You have to make your land payments.

There is different services out there that people can go to their Farm Service Agency.

They can contact their county extension office in regards to questions and NRCS.

And maybe get some funding.

There's a lot of grants out there right now to take, you know, really full advantage of if you can if you qualify for that.

I know personally that we qualified for some of those during COVID and so forth, so I have a very good rapport with one of my farm service agents, and so they are always constantly letting us know what we can and cannot do in regards to that.

And that's super helpful because that's a little bit goes a long way.

And one piece of advice that I would would give is let go, which you can't control.

So unfortunately that's kind of the times that we're living in with different prices and it is hard to budget.

Just like Rebecca, you know we don't know what's going to happen with fertilizer and gas prices and diesel prices, and that's another thing that farmers have to deal with and and another thing too is in my area.

We've seen where fuel will be stolen out of some of the the pumps, and that's not really good.

Scenario, either because a lot of times we rely on those to water rice for instance, or drain out of our wells.

And if we have no fuel then that leads to a terrible mess and so it's it's hard to manage and monitoring your fields.

I mean you can't do that 24/7, so it's it's just really tough right now.

You mentioned some of those resources that that people can go to and that that is part of what we are here to talk about tonight.

Is that you're not alone.

I mean everyone faces troubles and stresses and and we want to share those resources to say, reach out.

There is someone we are all in this together.

If you think that you are alone, you are not.

And so we I know that we've got some of those resources up on the screen tonight.

Rebecca, I want to talk about what both of you, but let's talk about.

The family stress a family farm is a beautiful thing.

It is and and a family is beautiful and then and then you were just wanting to you know.

I mean it's.

Let's talk about that.

Let's talk about working with those.

Those close family members and and how they deal with that.

I always try to think about that.

The family farm is a business and so you treat it as such and so and also in general conflict management and communicating effectively.

Taking that emotion may be out of it, and talking about the issue instead of maybe the actions of that person that you might be a little aggravated with.

Also, like I know that trying to just stay, I guess within what your role is like.

I you know my husband communicates a lot with his father and his brother and his uncle that are also involved in the farm.

So if there's anything any issues that he's you know having which I couldn't tell you if there was right now or.

Never has been, but if they're injuries, yeah, setting boundaries, yeah, setting boundaries and also knowing again, taking the emotion out of it and talking to them maybe like this is the issue I'm having using I statements like not putting the blame on them but saying I feel frustrated whenever I'm working cattle and I don't get any help from you.

So when can you help me next time that we're working cattle and you know, just trying not to.

I guess lose your cool over something so, but that's what I would suggest.

I think having that open line of communication and setting those boundaries it is difficult to work with family members.

I I know that and I'm younger than my dad and so a lot of times we we might clash a little bit just because of new ideas that I might have versus he had and he had the same thing with his father because I asked him about this absolutely and I just, you know, for example, he wanted to.

Use a different company and my grandfather was.

This is how it's been type of thing and so.

I asked them what they did and how they you know solved it and just said hey, let's try it this year and if it doesn't workout then let's go back to the way it was the year before and I think having that relationship.

It's a family farm and we want to keep it a family farm in order to hand that on to our you know, children and our grandchildren, and our great grandchildren, and so we might not see eye to eye at all times, but I think we're still family.

Just like Rebecca said, we're still family.

You still love one another and at the end of the day, you know you're still going to be family.

You're still going to be.

You just have to work together and come together.

Absolutely, I just thank you so much.

This has been this has been absolutely incredible.

Suicide is often treated as a taboo topic, but there are groups trying to change that.

Agra safe and the University of Kentucky are spreading awareness that talking about suicide is the first step to preventing it.

That experience of feeling isolated and that nobody understands somebody is one of the prevailing emotions when people are in suicide crisis, and so that's what QPR does is it takes away that isolation and hopefully plants those seeds that you know that we're here to walk with you.

Through this QPR stands for question, persuade and refer and it's one type of suicide prevention program that has been recognized by.

Samsara is a best practice and samsara is the substance abuse and mental Health Services administration.

I mean, personally I believe CPR is so special because I think suicide is such a taboo conversation.

People are scared to talk about it.

You know, there's that myth that if I confront someone, or if I ask someone you know, are you having suicidal thoughts?

They think that that could push someone to doing that potential act and QPR.

We're trying to take away that myth.

We're trying to, you know, educate these people that know that is not the case.

You know, talking about it, maybe the only thing that could prevent it.

It's really giving people an opportunity to learn more about how to navigate that difficult conversation, and hopefully they leave feeling really confident.

And their abilities to do that.

Microsoft has actually been around for 20 years in the area of occupational health, and so in a collaboration with University of Kentucky Southeast AG Center, they took upon the the job of developing this very special QPR and and really made it relevant to individuals that work with people in AG.

It frames this in terms of agriculture, so the learner learns up front the stressors that are within that population.

And then the second half of that training asked the learner to apply those concepts to the qPCR method.

People feel comfortable, particularly in rural communities and agricultural communities.

They tend to reach out to friends to family and in our rural communities they reach out to their spiritual counselors.

And so those churches serve as a really main hub.

You know, to get people access into care, you know, to be that bridge.

If you think yourself, who would I ask?

It's going to be somebody.

That you trust, and so we just want all of those individuals that are in your circle that you could trust you know to be ready to sort of feel that conversation.

You know you have another tool in your toolbox that we can always refine our tools.

We can always be better with handling our tools, but really what's important is you have the tool right?

So I wouldn't be so caught up in using the right language because that'll make you.

That'll lessen your willingness right to intervene with somebody because you'll be too worried about that.

I think that.

Oftentimes, when we feel that way, we're more worried about ourselves saying the wrong thing, and sometimes I can overcome.

And I say this from my own point of view, overcome our concern for the other, for the individual that's in front of us.

So if you come from a place of caring, honestly you can do no wrong, no wrong.

And I also say to people that hindsight is always 2020, right?

And again, even with that hindsight, there's no perfect way to engage someone in this conversation, right?

Because you can't fix it for them.

Now to talk more about managing stress, we have three new guests.

Amanda Welch is a 4H youth development specialist.

Doctor Brittany Shrick, PhD, is the assistant professor and family life specialist at the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, and Mandy Davis is a mental health therapist with Cornerstone Counseling Clinic in Nashville, AR.

Ladies thank you all.

For being here with us this evening, it's a it's a tough topic.

It's a touchy subject, but it's very important and that's why we are here to bring light to it and to show that people are not alone.

And so if we all talk to each other and talk with each other and there are ways that we can find help so.

Let's just get right to it.

Let's we're we're talking about suicide and that's a very that's that's tough.

But and in this in this industry it's it's tough because people feel so isolated and they think I've I've got the weight of the world on my shoulders I've got to keep my successful farm.

That's not the case that there is help.

You want to talk a little bit about that?

Brittany, sure.

So the the stresses of farming, agriculture, living in rural settings, the isolation is a huge part.

Of farming, generally you're kind of by yourself.

You're in a.

You might be in the cab of a tractor for many hours a day.

You might only interact with several other people and then also living in small communities.

There's the isolation of living in small communities and having access to resources.

There's limited access to everything, right?

So you're limited to what grocery stores you have.

You're limited to where you can shop for clothes you're limited to having to to drive far away, to get parts for your your machines, and things like that.

So having those limitations are not.

That's not new to folks who live in rural communities, but when it comes to mental health, it can be.

Exacerbated by limitations of everything else.

So if you if you have to go so far away to do everything, mental health is not going to be on the top of your priority list.

So one of I like to say that one of the positive things that came out of the COVID pandemic is the kind of acceptance of telehealth and telemedicine.

And so there's been a lot of folks who have accessed resources through telephone and FaceTime and other options like that telemedicine.

So having those options.

It's been a huge boon for that industry and for folks kind of being able to say, you know what?

I don't have to drive anywhere.

I also don't have to be seen anywhere so I can be in my car.

I can be in my home and you know, if I live in Nashville, AR and I drive into the into the clinic and somebody sees my truck there and says hey, what were you doing down at Cornerstone?

Today what what were you there for?

If if Mandy can talk to them on the phone instead, then they that's a huge benefit, so having those those resources available is is huge.

Uims has a 24/7 helpline that is free and available to everyone in Arkansas and so it's going to be a huge benefit for those folks who can't maybe get to a get to a clinic in places that are more remote.

Mandy you you are with Cornerstone which?

Covers a large portion of the southern Arkansas area, right?

Yes, ma'am and what what services do you all offer that for?

For people in these that are watching that are like that is me?

How I need help?

Well, we offer an array of services.

I mean we we have a telehealth services.

We offer a lot of anger management CBT therapies, the different different variety of therapies.

But the main thing is that we are slowly implanting our our therapy seed in each one of the rural areas and she does say said something that was very true.

A lot of people have that stigma that they don't want to be seen at a therapy clinic because it's almost as if they feel that they've lost control.

Then they have to seek help of someone so the telehealth services are very very important and a lot of people are utilizing those and and they are beneficial.

You know you can FaceTime, you can watch peoples gestures, their body language and kind of get an idea of how they are mentally.

But people believe that in rural areas that you know those services aren't available and they are.

They're becoming more widespread for availability, and you know our our clinic.

Like you said, Lauren.

We serve a lot of of Southwest Arkansas and we're slowly moving into those areas that people.

They know that they've struggled, but they can't quite put their finger of how to get help, you know, and I always say it's kind of the AAA battery.

They've got to have awareness, acceptance, and then action.

They're aware that they have a problem, and then they've got to accept that they need to seek help, and then the action of doing so.

So what are some of those specific problems?

I want to specific example if you can, without you know of.

That you hear that you have on the phone call of someone calling what what are you?

What do you hear on in your line of business that that Arkansas farmers are dealing with anxiety?

There?

They have a lot of fear of the unknown and fear of failure and what I do see a lot of coming from a rural area myself is that they have fear of losing their family farms that have been in their families for generations and.

You know, with the rising cost of everything and the uncertainty of our trade, it it's it's very scary to them.

And they don't know how to deal with those emotions of the fear of the unknown, and so they need that help coping skills of breathing through it, change of perspective and redirection of where their thought process is going.

And you know you focus on their on their thoughts because you try to try to aim to change their perspective from negative to more positive thinking because.

And it creates more positive emotions.

Therefore it creates more positive behaviors and you see a lot in rural areas that they get stuck in that thinking and they have a lot of a lot of them struggle with alcoholism because that's their go to a lot of farmers struggle with that, and that's that's their escape.

But there is help out there to help you through that.

In a more positive manner.

Like I said earlier in the show, it's a snowball effect and and you.

You, you stress and then you lose your sleep, and then you you're not physically capable and then and you you said, breathe through it, which reminded me of yoga, which Amanda you.

Let's talk about what you do in some of the services that you do with 4H kids or I guess any children are absolutely so we have a four hoga program and we train our agents and other states on the program.

And I'm a yoga instructor and so one of the things with yoga is breathing.

Through your poses in majority of people were an automatic breather, so being conscious of our breathing is so important.

So actually using our full lung capacity, a lot of us are just chest breathers and not belly breathers.

So we're only using half of our lungs when we use our chest to breathe.

So being very conscious of our breathing, learning how to calm breathing to kind of get yourself in that state of mind of where you're relaxed where you can go to sleep.

Not one of the things that Mandy touched on is having the adults actually trying to be proactive and help coping and finding coping that trickles down to youth in kids, if they see their parents or that their grandparents are working to overcome some struggles, they're more likely to be open to receive and talk, and being open to, you know, trying to work through some stressors theirself that they are having so yoga also has that physical component to it.

Where you can stretch the body, get some mobility so it's really good for farmers that kind of sit all day long.

Our bodies aren't meant to sit for long periods.

We're actually supposed to be up and moving, and so being able to have that mobility along with it is very beneficial.

A physical stress is common for farmers like we've just mentioned, and let's take a look at what 4H is doing to help them relieve physical and mental stress with that yoga program.

I want you to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.

Focusing on your breathing.

Breathe in.

And exhale.

With all your worries and your stresses on this mat today.

And exhale.

OK. You're focusing on yourself and your poses, and your breathing always going to warm up our body when we do yoga so much.

Jessica when we go through our poses, she's going to help get our bodies warmed up.

And then we're going to go through our routine.

And then we're going to do our relaxation and kind of bring our bodies back down and get focused into your neighbor.

And I want you to say you got this.

You got this with the 4H Shogo we really work on our breathing techniques yoga poses.

And got it relaxation.

Take a big deep breath in.

Squat down because we're going to go pick our eggs up and the chicken coop.

We're going to go to the front of our mat.

Kind of get in that farmers tabletop position.

A lot of us underuse our lung capacity, so using our full belly breathing helps use the full lung capacity.

Getting more oxygen to her brain which you to picture as if we're in an orchard today.

Sunny and the wind is blowing very good.

Pick all that fruit.

Pick all that fruit.

Let's come back to center all right.

And then let's smell that fruit.

This time I've got some pears in today's world, people are struggling and so yoga is actually a form for them to kind of decompress.

And really.

Get focused, he's gonna go home and show somebody in your house the breathing that you did today.

Awesome job.

We have several kids that come from farm families.

I would say probably anywhere from 60 to 70% of our population.

This is a universal program that can be applied to anybody with farming.

They are sent up to sundown sometimes.

It's 24/7, especially right now.

It's great for farmers because it can help with the range of motion it can help with promoting lean body mass, but the same time.

This is a great way to be calm and relaxed, especially for farmers right now because they're really stressed out.

So some of the poses that they can incorporate even on the farm is doing the mountain pose as we call it.

Then we can go into what we call the farmer bend.

That is where they can stretch their hamstrings out.

You want to make sure that we get everything loosened up with a warm up we can go into the chair pose.

They have their hands raised up and they're kind of in a slight bend that also helps with our quads.

Child's post can work on the lower back as well, and making sure that our spines are aligned and just really stretching those muscles.

We rely on a farmers here in Arkansas.

Yoga is something that they can take with them outdoors and enjoy it, whether they're in the field or they're on the tractor.

Yoga is a great time for them to take their boots off and just feel relaxed.

Amanda, that that was that was a great video.

I who knew that we were gonna have a yoga lesson tonight right?

I do wanna say this one thing so my father was a farmer and I have to admit he he he was a stressed he was a stressed farmer.

I can't imagine saying dad take off your boots and do some yoga.

How do you break through that?

When somebody?

Oh I'm I'm too tough or I don't have time.

How do you?

How do you not down that barrier and say no and it doesn't have to be yoga?

It could be, it could be another recreational.

You know thing that just makes you feel good.

So what we like to try to do with our kids is kind of teach them some breathing techniques.

Learn how to actually breathe.

Breathe through being conscious of their breathing and then kind of lead into it, maybe with more of like let's do a little bit of a stretch of some sort.

Let's bring in our arms up over our heads.

Bring in our up hands back down to our palms.

Now we're going to incorporate an inhale on an exhale with that, and that's essentially yoga.

So when you put it together and you start forming what we call a yoga flow.

Then it becomes more of a session.

So working on some upper muscles stretches lower muscle and actually being intentional of the breathing, breathing in, breathing out and maybe even holding that pose for a few seconds to really feel that stretch is very beneficial.

So there is, you know, some ways that you can kind of guide into it, but it there's a lot of benefits to doing yoga, absolutely.

OK, we have.

We want to talk about the topic of suicide and Brittany, you've got some statistics that are quite eye opening if you will.

I do so.

Arkansas the the most recent statistics we have are just from 2020 so they didn't tend to lag behind a couple of years.

Just as as the statistics are put together.

But for 2020 Arkansas was in the top third of states in the nation and in terms of suicide rate, so the average for the US is 14 suicides.

Per 100,000 residents and Arkansas's just over 19, so it's like 19.2 so Arkansas rate is already higher than average.

We can't really say with any accuracy the percentage of those folks who are farmers or who are in agriculture.

There's lots of reasons for that.

Those the statistics don't tend to drill down quite that to quite that level.

And it's really hard to get accurate readings of that sort of thing.

But beyond actual suicide completion.

There are about 25 attempts per one documented suicide, so we're looking at in in 2020.

There were almost 46,000 suicides in the United States, so we're looking at 1.15 million suicide attempts approximately in the United States in 2020.

That was actually down 2018 was was kind of the the highest year we've had in a long time.

That I'll be really interested to see how the pandemic influenced the suicide rate, and we won't obviously see that in its full effect until we get the 2021 statistics.

But beyond how?

Held suicides affect that.

You know, the individual and the family.

It's also going to ripple out into the community and so for everyone suicide we're looking at about 135 people who are affected.

All of these.

These figures come from that QPR training that was discussed in the video.

We actually offer that training through Cooperative Extension as well here in Arkansas.

And if you're interested in that, you can contact your Cooperative Extension office.

We do offer this training for anybody who's interested.

But that is a huge impact, right?

It's a ripple effect out from the one person.

And it tends to be especially severe in small tight knit communities and where to farmers live small tight knit communities.

So for every one you know person, it's a huge broad impact and it's not a short lived impact.

Especially in this tight knit communities.

Why?

And I want to say, why is the stigma?

Why do you find?

People don't reach out for help.

Do they think they don't need it?

Are they embarrassed?

All the above, I believe it's a little of all the above.

There's a lot of it.

Is the lack of knowledge you know.

In rural areas, people do not talk about mental health.

Learn at all, and they know that they struggle with things.

But it's just kind of like.

You just got to get tough and deal with it and you have to solve your own problems, but they don't.

They lack the coping skills to do it in a positive manner so therefore they stay stuck in what I call sickness.

You know where they're they're not able to be a perform on an accurate level of and like lack of sleep.

As well as just going through their mind constantly of.

You know all the different negative things about farming and and they feel alone.

They're isolated.

Most farmers are by themselves most of the day.

They're on a tractor.

I mean, especially in the summer months.

You know they're on a tractor most of the day.

Billing hay or something along those lines, and they've just got to be stuck with themselves in thinking and.

I believe that if they had more knowledge of of different resources that things could be different and that's why these programs are so beneficial for people to to create more self awareness and to create more things.

More awareness of of the different resources available for them.

Speaking of those resources, which I know that they're several resources will be on the screen this evening.

What what about the the friends and family who are watching and they they say, I think that I've got someone very close to me that is dealing with this.

I have no idea what to say to them.

I'm scared something's going to happen.

I don't, but I'm not.

I'm not qualified.

What do they say or where do they go?

Well, watching for sort of red flag behaviors or red flag phrases?

Things like you know what?

I just don't know if I can do this anymore.

Or you know what?

I'm I'm worth more dead than alive.

So why should I continue to do this?

Hearing things like that a lot of times people will laugh it off and now you know what I didn't, I don't.

I don't really mean that or they'll laugh it off as the receiver of hearing that information and think, oh, there's no no way.

But those are.

Those are things that should be taken at face value.

If you hear someone say that and one of the most difficult things you can ever ask someone, but it might save their life is are you thinking of suicide?

Use the word suicide.

Don't say.

Are you thinking of hurting yourself?

Don't say are you thinking of ending your life?

Don't say you would never commit suicide, would you?

Because of course they're going to say no.

But say, are you thinking of suicide?

Because it's the hardest thing you'll ever say.

But it's real hard to hear.

And it might.

Save that person's life and make them think you know what.

I didn't realize that's what I was thinking of, but that is what I'm thinking of.

If you're really concerned.

Over half of suicides are firearms related, and so making sure that you know where people's firearms are and that they're accounted for is important.

And if if somebody asks you, you know what could you hold my guns for me for a couple days, do it because they they mean it.

They wouldn't ask you to if they didn't mean it, so that's men are at much higher risk and they are much more likely to be.

I hate to use the word successful, but that's that's really what it is.

They're much more likely to complete suicide on an attempt than women are.

Women are much more likely to use less lethal means than men, so it's it's just paying attention to those sorts of things and listening and making sure that the person knows you're listening.

This topic has been.

Talked about and brought up a lot recently across the board, across the nation, in All in all media outlets.

I don't know if it's if it's from the pandemic or I mean it's it's.

It's a lot of things that bring it to everyone's top of mind and this being mental health Awareness Month a lot.

You know you can see all the blogs and watch the videos and you see the stories.

What how do we get past just the let's talk about it?

And let's have, you know, let's let's have an article on our website about it.

Or you know why is it so important that we take it past this discussion tonight and and how do we take it past the discussion and actually make that positive difference?

I know that may be a very tough question to answer, but that's what I wonder Mandy had touched on being able to identify.

So with the young kids, it's really important to allow them to identify the emotions you know.

We're really quick to use anger, but there's also sadness.

There's also joy, grief, happiness.

There's so many emotions that we really don't touch on at a young age and help being able to self regulate self aware.

Of our emotions and being able to understand that I'm having this reaction and now how do I deal with that and being able to suffer that is so important at a young age and it would come naturally as an adult if we were more, you know aware of it.

So kind of talking with your kids and allowing them.

We have 4H at home that you can look up and of activities that do.

If like cutting out a different faces of in the magazine and pasting them of like this is a sad face.

And this is a happy face, and this is what joy looks like to him, and being able to identify some of them emotions is very beneficial as far as being able to cope and deal with a lot of.

Anxiety and depression.

And just having that voice having their voice and knowing that they have it.

And kind of piggybacking off of that.

So for adults.

Coping with the emotion that they're actually feeling instead of processing the emotion they felt because they felt that way.

So if you are feeling sad and then get mad because you're sad, you start processing the anger and not the sadness.

So a lot of times people end up kind of skipping over the emotion that they're really feeling, and that's really causing them the stress into guilt or anxiety or distress or fear.

And what they really are is sad.

That they might lose their farm, or they maybe they are mad, but then they feel guilty because they're mad, so they start processing the guilt instead of processing the anger.

And then all of that just kind of gets shoved down into this box that doesn't ever get opened because if we open it then we have to deal with all of it.

So yeah, it's a it's a.

It's a process and you're absolutely right, because if you if you train kids to do it when they're young, it's second nature to them, and so one of the best things that adults can do.

Is to to model that behavior for the children and young people in their lives, because if they do, they're breaking down that barrier for those kids as they get older, and then they may not have to deal with the with these things to that extent as they get older.

Going off both of these guys.

Anger is an outward expression of an inner fear.

When I taught school children would be angry and I wished that I would have had the mental health knowledge back then to be able to ask them what are you afraid of?

And there are three root fears, and that's abandonment, rejection and fear of failure and or the unknown.

And a lot with farming families.

They get very upset because and you you see them get angry when equipment breaks down or.

Gets set off when a cow dies or you know something along those lines and they're afraid of failure.

And the same thing that you guys talked about is teaching these children young how to deal with those failures and how to be able to pick yourself up and use those failures as a stepping stone to move on and progress.

Because life goes on, it does.

And it's all about perspective and those coping skills.

And.

A lot of trauma is learned behaviors.

Those learned behaviors need to be changed to more positive behaviors instead of those angry toxic behaviors that that that's what we see in these in, in.

In a lot of these children growing up, it's because of the lack of knowledge from inside the home of how to do things differently.

Umm?

Ladies, we've got just a few more minutes.

Is there anything else that that you want to share with our viewers?

This has been absolutely eye opening and and quite incredible.

I did want to mention that kind of across the board with what we've been talking about.

There's a lot of diversity within the agriculture community, and not everyone, of course, is going to have access to the same resources or have the same kind of experiences.

And so, especially when you get into the delta region with especially the Southeast Delta region with rowcrop communities, there's a large proportion of of farmers of color.

In that area who we're going to have in need have access to and need different resources than what are available in other parts of the state.

Financial services are going to be a little bit different depending on what commodity you grow and what you know.

What kind of producer you are.

Women in agriculture are going to have different needs than than than some men in agriculture.

If you're an urban farmer, you're going to need different things than folks who live in more rural communities.

So I think a lot of it is going to be kind of finding the resources that fit.

Your need and one of the places that I always tell people to start, and I mean this is a shameless plug.

Of course, for all of the the division of agree folks who have been on this.

But starting with your your county extension office is always a good place to start.

And in Farm Bureau other places like that that are all over the state are going to be able to kind of connect people with those sorts of resources based on what their actual needs are rather than just kind of these.

These starting broad and then and then funneling down so.

All right, thank you and it's.

Our goal to, well, we have lots of goals tonight, but one of our main focuses was to show that farmers are not alone and that yes, we sit up here on on the desk and and have all of these resources.

But these resources are for all of our Arkansas farmers.

The problem can be this big or it can be this big, but it's for everybody and it's available for everybody.

So thank you ladies.

Farmers and ranchers deserve our respect and our help.

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for now to talk about this crucial topic.

Thank you to my panelists and thank you to all of those Arkansas farmers.

And thank you to all of our viewers.

Good night.

This program is funded through a farm and ranch Stress Assistance Network Grant provided by the United States Department of Agriculture and administered by the Arkansas Department of Agriculture.