Farmers' Perceptions of Information and Resources for Navigating Economic Hardship and Stress

The following report is based on results of a community engaged research project coordinated by the Rural Advancement Foundation International - USA (RAFI-USA) with funding from the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) grants and outreach program (Grant #LS20-336). The project began in April 2020 as a collaboration between RAFI-USA, university partners, the Land Loss Prevention Project (LLPP), and the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT), along with farmer collaborators from various southern states. University partners for the project were the North Carolina Agromedicine Institute (NCAI) and North Carolina State University (NCSU). The major goal of the project was to understand the experiences of financial and emotional distress among farm households in NC, SC, and VA. A specific goal was to identify the resources that farmers undergoing distress found useful in negotiating the stress process. Additionally, the project sought to differentiate these experiences based upon race so that culturally-relevant resources could be developed in the future.