In addition to the extraordinary stresses, the farming population experiences ordinary stresses. Ordinary stresses include the constancy of responsibilities to make or keep the farm profitable; beginning and/or retaining a farming legacy; juggling on and off-farm work; caring for family members; dealing with illness or injury; accessing health care; obtaining health insurance; managing multi-generational tensions (Fullerton, 2017); and handling weariness and loneliness (Braun, 2019). Both types of stresses may destabilize individuals, families, farms, and local communities. Agricultural communities experience downturns in their economies and available social capital to do the important work of community engagement when the farming population is coping with the pile-up of stress. Cooperative Extension has historically responded to the challenge of changes affecting agriculture and the farming population with a focus on individuals and farms. Professionals within and outside of Extension, representing multiple disciplines, are seeking ways to understand and address contemporary impacts of change, with accompanying stress, on farming, farming populations, and the public. Some professionals identified the need during the 1980s farm crisis, and some have identified the need after more recent downturns in farming profitability, described in news reports of suicides and indicated in farm organization surveys, and recent research. An array of professionals from multiple disciplines is calling for help in developing their understanding of the problems and issues, identifying resources they can use to help the people they serve, and in gaining confidence to act. Some are seeking help as they handle their personal reactions to stresses and crises of those they serve. Evidence of the presence of stress (distress) and sources of stress (stressors) is found in literature from the United States and other countries. Stress has no jurisdictional boundaries. Stress becomes distress when there is a pile-up of stressors that can overwhelm the ability to process without some negative impact. This pile-up is also known as cumulative stress. Farm and farm family stress — more accurately, distress — is brought on by pressures experienced by members of the farming population, farming systems, and farms as a business. Stress is a response to change in internal conditions or external conditions or both. It is a response to environmental demands and changes within an individual, family, or farm or outside in economic, social, environmental, policy, or physical environments.
Farm and farm family stress — more accurately, distress — is brought on by pressures experienced by members of the farming population, farming systems, and farms as a business.
This 4-minute TED-ED video, How Stress Affects Your Brain, provides a brief overview of the impact of stress, and especially chronic stress, on the brain and body. This overview is fundamental to understanding stressors and mental and physical health within the farming population. https://www.ted.com/talks/madhumita_murgia_ho w_stress_affects_your_brain/transcript?language= en#t-2030
VIDEO
13
Powered by FlippingBook