Side by Side: Building Community Capacity to Support Dairy Farmers During Periods of Crisis and Transition

Commodities

• Animal Products: dairy

Practices

• Education and Training: farmer to farmer, participatory research
• Farm Business Management: community-supported agriculture
• Sustainable Communities: quality of life, social psychological indicators

Project Focus

This project targets dairy farming communities across New York, where farmers face intense economic and structural pressures, particularly market consolidation, and seek trusted supports rooted in agricultural realities^{1, 2}. In New York, farmers are identified as a high-risk population for mental health challenges^{3, 4}; nationally, farmers have among the highest suicide rates of any occupation⁵.

For context, New York's licensed dairy herds declined from 4,950 in 2014 to 2,880 in 2024 (a 32% decline), mirroring national trends^{6, 7}. Farming is deeply tied to identity and purpose, when farming is no longer viable, many feel bereft, alone, and a profound sense of failure^{8, 9}.

To quote one farmer who lost his farm after 12 generations "…the sense of guilt and shame will never leave me… I couldn't keep things going… the day the cows were taken was the worst day of my life"¹⁰; illustrating how structural change is experienced as a profound personal/social rupture.

In response, this project aims to strengthen the wellbeing and adaptive capacity of dairy communities by developing and piloting a farmer-led, trusted-actor program that supports peer-connection and collective response during periods of farm crisis and transition^{11, 12}. Thus, supporting the health of people in the food and farm system.

Solution and approach

Building on evidence-based approaches^{11, 12}, we propose a two-year, Community-Based-Participatory-Research (CBPR) project to develop and pilot a peer-to-peer training-program titled "Side by Side" (see Appendix A: Project Flowchart). This program will offer tailored community-support during periods of transition.

Phase 1 (Year 1: formative CBPR): will convene a farmer-centered advisory committee and partner with farmer-representative groups to conduct focus groups that: (1) provide clarity on how structural change is experienced by farmers; (2) map existing supports and where they succeed or stall; and (3) co-design a regional attuned training package (content, recruitment criteria, delivery format, safeguards, and measures of success) that addresses needs and gaps in current supports. This formative phase is essential, as interventions can fail when they conflict with local norms or require unavailable resources; building flexibility into the curriculum to permit adaptation is critical¹³.

Phase 2 (Year 2: pilot + refinement): will train a cohort of local actors (farmers, farm extension agents, trusted locals) to facilitate the "Side by Side" program using diffusion logic: evidence shows that recruiting local "influence agents" and supporting them to diffuse behaviors through modeling can increase community engagement^14,15. Training will incorporate agriculture-specific, relatable scenarios; an element shown to be associated with sustained improvements in capacity-building for agricultural mental health programs^15,16. Consistent with evidence from existing programs, we will also include structured skill-building around opening conversations, confidentiality/trust building, and signposting, supported by refreshers^17,18. By supporting farmers through crisis points, the program promotes agricultural workforce continuity.

The project's focus is to strengthen community-level capacity to support farmers during periods of crisis and transition by adapting and piloting a farmer-led, trusted-actor dialogue program in New York. The project will focus on dairy farmers and farm-families in counties selected because they have experienced severe farm attrition (46%-66% loss between 2012 and 2022 ⁵³; see Table 1B, Appendix B) and represent communities where farm loss and transition pressures are actively unfolding.

Using a CBPR design ^{54, 55}, the project will first work with farmers (n=36) and key informants (n=24) to understand how consolidation, farm loss, and transition are experienced at the community level; identify trusted local actors and support pathways; and adapt an evidence-informed dialogue framework ^{11, 12} to local and regional occupational realities. In Year 2, the adapted program will be piloted with a cohort (n=6) of farmers, extension agents, and local actors and refined based on farmer feedback.

The expected benefit is a tested, adoptable model that increases dialogue, strengthens social connection, and improves community response to crisis -- yielding practical approaches that can be shared with farming communities across the Northeast facing similar consolidation pressures.