The Forgotten Crisis on America’s Farms: Suicide, Mental Health, and a Dangerous Reversal Under Trump

In the vast stretches of rural Utah, where cattle graze and crops stretch to the horizon, another, far more invisible crisis has been quietly claiming lives, suicide among farmers and ranchers. In Utah, agricultural workers die by suicide at the third-highest rate among all professions, just behind miners and construction workers.

In 2016, male farmers and ranchers died by suicide at 43.2 per 100,000, roughly 60% higher than the 27.4 per 100,000 rate for working-age men in all occupations that year. Looking back to 2012, those in the combined farming, fishing, and forestry sector faced an 84.5 per 100,000 suicide rate, nearly six times the national average of 14.5 per 100,000. More recently, 2021 data show male farmers at 52.1 per 100,000 versus 32.0 per 100,000 for all working-age men, a 63% elevation in risk. There’s a silent epidemic sweeping rural America caused by the isolation, the relentless financial pressure, and buried by a deep-rooted cultural stigma around asking for help.

And what makes this crisis even more tragic? We had a solution. For a brief moment, hope came in the form of a federal initiative under the Biden administration that allocated emergency funds for mental health support to rural America, including Utah. Through this funding, Utah State University Extension was able to launch a life-saving program that offered $2,000 therapy vouchers to farmers and ranchers. The response was immediate and overwhelming, within just four months, the funds were gone, spent helping real people through real pain.

One rancher who benefited from the program said bluntly, “It saved my life.” These weren’t abstract dollars on a spreadsheet. These were lifelines thrown to the people who grow our food and feed our nation.

But that progress was abruptly reversed.

In early 2025, the Trump administration made a brutal and shortsighted decision: it terminated more than $11 billion in health-related funding, including critical dollars earmarked for mental health and addiction services. There was no transition plan. No state-level cushion. No outreach to those already receiving help. In places like rural Utah, where state leaders declined to continue the program once federal dollars dried up, the therapy stopped. Cold.

Let that sink in, programs that were saving lives were cut with the stroke of a pen.

To make matters worse, the Trump administration’s policies didn’t just eliminate mental health resources; they actively compounded the stressors driving this crisis. Massive cuts to USDA programs disrupted local food systems that supported small farmers. Trade wars and erratic tariffs choked agricultural exports, slashing revenue for rural communities already stretched to their limits. These policies turned economic anxiety into a full-blown mental health emergency.

And when farmers needed help the most, they were met with silence, or worse, indifference.

Contrast this with the Biden administration’s efforts to prioritize rural mental health funding, restore USDA support programs, and direct resources toward resilience in the agricultural sector. The difference in approach could not be starker. One party acknowledged the human toll of farming’s challenges and responded with compassion. The other axed funding, ignored the crisis, and walked away from the people holding up our nation’s food supply.

We should be outraged. We should be heartbroken. But most of all, we should be activated.

This isn’t about partisan politics, it’s about human lives. It’s about whether we, as a nation, value the people who make it possible for us to eat three meals a day. And it’s about whether we’ll allow ideology and cruelty to override empathy and evidence-based policy.

There is still time to correct course.

We need permanent, state-supported mental health programs tailored to the unique needs of rural communities. We need to stop playing politics with people’s lives. And we need leaders who see farmers not as props in campaign ads, but as fellow Americans deserving dignity, care, and support.

Because the truth is simple: if we don’t take care of the people who feed us, we all go hungry, literally and morally.

If this story moved you, share it. Talk about it. Demand action. And if you or someone you know is struggling, call 988, the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Help is real, and it should be accessible to everyone.

Mitch Jackson, Esq. | links

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