Navigating Financial and Mental Health Crises

View the project final report

Commodities

Practices

• Education and Training: farmer to farmer, mentoring, technical assistance
• Sustainable Communities: analysis of personal/family life, quality of life, social psychological indicators

PROJECT INFORMATION

The purpose of the Navigating Financial and Mental Health Crises project is to reduce the loss of farms and lives by researching and testing culturally-responsive information and information delivery that addresses the combined financial, land tenure and mental health issues faced by farm families in severe financial distress. At the time the project began in April 2020, we could not have foreseen how the coronavirus pandemic would cause us to adapt to how this work would move forward. What we are doing  - the project scope - remains unchanged, but how and when we carry out project activities have shifted. For example, the initial timeline of the project was slowed significantly as we pivoted and regrouped in response to widespread shut-down, including farmers having market channels shut down. We had to re-think our strategy at every phase of the project, from project management team activities, receiving IRB certification and approval for the data collection instruments and protocols, conducting participant interviews, to results dissemination. We made the needed adjustments and are proud to report the project is proceeding successfully. 

Project Abstract:

 This project is a collaboration between experienced farm financial, legal and mental health experts and farmers who have experienced fiscal trauma to research the ways in which farmers facing crisis access and process information. Our work is to examine available resources, identify gaps, and to adapt or develop new materials that support farmers in crisis, as well as identify the most effective methods to disseminate these resources via work with our farmer partners, through direct service to farmers, our partner organizations, and through broad publication online. 

The project works with partners in NC, VA and TX to research effective communication and intervention on financial, mental health and land tenure issues in farm decision-making in White, Indigenous and African-American farm communities. Our approach is unique in that it addresses these issues together, and explores the experience of farm financial stress as financial trauma with the goals of building culturally-appropriate resources, aid farmer decision-making skills, and to enhance the ability of farm families to move beyond crisis. Forty-five farmers or farm families who have experienced farm financial crisis will be interviewed to determine the information needed, how they were able to access information during the crisis, and if there were impediments to information access. Farmers are being identified from the direct services of RAFI, referrals from Farmer Collaborators, and leveraging relationships with organizations that serve farmers

The data collected from the interviews will be used to create evaluation criteria for existing materials on farm financial and mental health stress to identify those that match the needs and form participants described in the surveys. The project team will then prioritize adaptation or development of additional materials to address needs.

The results of surveys will be disseminated through professional and popular publications and presentations at professional conferences. Identified, adapted or developed materials will be disseminated to farmers through presentations at conferences and through a specific page on the ATTRA web site.

The partner organizations bring to this project decades of experience with farmers in financial and mental health stress. Research & materials development and testing will take place in a context of ongoing services for farmers in crisis.