With traces of winter’s unusually heavy snow still lingering, farmers were out dawn to dusk in early May, planting corn and soybeans across southwestern Minnesota fields many have owned for generations.
The threat of losing beloved family farms is a growing worry, affecting many farmers’ mental health and raising concerns of another uptick in suicides like during the 1980s farm crisis. Much of the stress stems from being dependent on factors largely outside their control – from the increasingly unpredictable weather to growing costs of equipment to global market swings that can wipe out profits.
