Milio spent a decade farming organic food and flowers in California, where she witnessed the impacts of climate change on small farms firsthand. She currently works to enable farmers to be more resilient in the face of climate change through her role as the Agricultural Stewardship Program Manager at the San Mateo Resource Conservation Districtn 2023, Scott Chang-Fleeman—a young farmer like me—put down his shovel.
During the first year running his farm, Chang-Fleeman focused his sales on his relationships with local restaurants, while attending some farmers' markets sales to supplement income. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, he lost all of his restaurant accounts overnight. “I was hoping to hit some sort of a rhythm, and every year felt a bit like starting from scratch,” Chang-Fleeman reflected.
Chang-Fleeman’s burnout reminded me of my own story. In the fall of 2018, I took what ended up being a two-month medical leave from an organic farm I managed in Northern California in order to try to try to resolve a set of weird symptoms that included dizzy spells and heart palpitations. If you know anything about farming, fall is not the time to be absent. It’s peak harvest time and the culmination of all of your work is underway.
Take for instance, Jac Wypler, Farmer Mental Health Director at the National Young Farmer Coalition , who oversees the Northeast region’s Farmer and Rancher Stress Assistance Network . The organization was established by the Farm Bill in 2018 to develop a service provider network for farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural workers that was dedicated to mental well-being.