Editor’s note: If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Doug Fuller sits at his dining room table in the middle of his nearly 1,000-acre corn and soybean farm. He holds up a plaster mold of a cat’s paw engraved with the name, “Ellie.”
“I had a pet cat here, and it was just my pet cat and I for most of the time,” 69-year-old Fuller said. “And I had to put this cat to sleep. And that was so hard for me.”
The rooms in his house are spotless. One can imagine the level of care he gave his cat.
“I just went downhill, really bad,” he said. “I was able to help put the crop in that spring, but by fall, I didn’t even work. I was just incapable of doing much of anything.”
Fuller said that painful experience, coupled with the pandemic, launched him into a long bout with severe depression. He ended up spending two months in the hospital.
“I was very suicidal,” he said. “It didn’t happen, but it was on my [mind] all the time. And I can’t tell you how many goodbye notes that I wrote.”
Fuller shared the farm with his brother, who lived in a house just down the road. The two were the fourth in their family line to inherit the farm.
A few years after Fuller’s struggle with depression, his brother died by suicide.
“He had the world by the tail,” Fuller said, “but he just couldn’t recognize it.”
His brother’s mood matched the volatility of corn and soybean markets, which he watched closely.
“Prices…if they’d go down sharp, it just caused so much anxiety for him,” Fuller said.
The brothers are not alone in their mental health struggles. Farmers are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population, according to the Rural Health Association.
Cattle farmer and Iowa Farmers Union Executive Director Matt Russell said one reason is that farmers are hit especially hard by shifts in the economy.
“It really is a roller coaster of an economic business, and right now we’re in one of those downcycles,” Russell said. “And we don’t know how far that’s going to go, so the economics right now are really driving a lot of stress.”
Farmers are struggling with higher input costs and low commodity prices. For months, they dealt with low crop demand after China decided to purchase from other countries because of President Trump’s tariffs.
Russell said the January ending of enhanced tax credits under the Affordable Care Act has also put health insurance out of reach for many farmers. A recent KFF analysis found 27% of the agricultural workforce purchases health insurance through the individual marketplace.
Some farmers say the federal government’s $12 billion package will provide some relief for widespread losses. It’s due at the end of February.
“I think there is some sense of relief out there, in the sense that you have a significant number of farmers in Iowa who are trying to figure out how to book the inputs for the crop next year,” Russell said. “When they were making these plans a year ago… we are not where they had penciled to be.”
But Russell said their stress is often about more than markets or policy.
“It really is about their sense of identity — that they can continue to be a farmer,” Russell said. “Is this a farm that is maybe in the fourth or fifth generation, and they’re the steward of the farm? Is it at risk?”
He said it’s yet to be told whether the current economic conditions will continue to decline to the point where farmers begin selling their livestock, equipment and land for lower prices.
But the cracks are already forming. Matt Deardeuff, an agricultural specialist who mediates debt discussions between farmers and banks, said some farmers consider taking more extreme measures just to make sure their families have a stable future.
“I’ve had a few people in this last year mention that the only way they can see a way out of their problem is from the proceeds from life insurance… their spouse collecting on the policy,” Deardeuff said.
He said he’s never heard farmers talk about committing suicide as openly as they do now.
“It is incredibly heavy, because it instantly makes me think, ‘They’ve put serious thought into this,’” Deardeuff added.
He makes sure those farmers always walk away from mediation discussions knowing there are mental health resources available to them.
Iowa Concern is a 24/7 hotline that operates out of Iowa State University.
“One of the things we hear farmers saying is they want to talk to somebody who knows their culture, who knows their language, who isn’t going to tell a dairy farmer who’s stressed to take two weeks of vacation,” said Tammy Jacobs, who has answered calls at the hotline for over 30 years.
She added that the number of calls the hotline receives each month fluctuates with global markets and major agricultural policy developments.
“In September, when [the Department of Agriculture] had issues with things not being signed into effect, our call volume increased, especially agricultural calls,” Jacobs said. “They were five times higher in September of this year than they were September of last year.”
On top of that, Jacobs said she has seen a growing divide between mental health providers — who often practice in urban areas — and rural communities.
“When you look at the farming world, especially in Iowa, it’s a pretty isolated job,” Jacobs said. “A lot of the farmers are farming by themselves, so they lack that connection with others. So just being available and connecting with that person, listening to them, letting them share their feelings… that’s one of the best things we can do.”
She said the rise in telehealth counseling since the pandemic has made mental health care more accessible for many farmers.
“They can actually be sitting in their tractor, in their combine, doing a half-hour session,” Jacobs said. “Nobody sees their truck at the local counseling center, so you reduce that stigma, and it’s still an opportunity to be able to get the help that farmers need.”
Brice Hundling, a livestock farmer from Western Iowa, said at an annual conference in Des Moines that he is often too busy to talk through issues with people in his community.
“I’ve got friends in the local community,” he said. “I’m not saying we’d sit around and talk about our struggles or whatever. They farm too. They’re super busy. We’re super busy.”
But Hundling said he found a way to work around that — he connected with another farmer who lives in Texas through a Facebook group called “Help For Men.”
“We Facebook messaged, and now we call each other on a semi-regular basis, probably at least weekly,” he said.
They bounce ideas off each other on a variety of topics, including but not limited to their families, relationships and farming.
“I’ve never actually met the guy in person,” Hundling said. “It would be nice to someday.
But he said for now, the separation is good — he can say whatever is on his mind without worrying if it will become the talk of the town.
____
James Kelley produced and edited this segment for broadcast with Cikũ Theuri. Kelley also produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2026 WBUR