A slumping agricultural economy is driving a surge of Wisconsin farmers to seek counseling from the state’s Farm Center.
State Agriculture Secretary Randy Romanski reported a significant spike in hotline calls to the Mid-West Farm Report.
“The number of mental health counseling vouchers that have been issued and redeemed is very high this year,” Romanski said. “The number of counseling sessions is up. It’s about 590 this year. That is a continuing increase in counseling sessions for the farm center and our partners.”
Multiple Financial Pressures Are Squeezing Producers.
“Even in the best of times, agriculture, farming is a challenging field,” Romanski said. “People know that. There are a lot of things beyond the farmer’s control. Weather, economic stresses, things like that. Add to those pressures international trade disruptions, tariffs and retaliatory tariffs, prices increasing… it’s a challenge, and what we’re seeing is that people are identifying the Wisconsin Farm Center as a resource. That’s why the farm center is there.”
Bankruptcy Picture Unclear
Low farm gate prices and high production costs continue to strain local producers. However, Romanski noted he has only seen national data indicating a rise in farm bankruptcies.
“I haven’t seen that broken down specifically for Wisconsin, and generally, The Farm Center keeps us posted on increases that might be coming our way,” he said. “The Farm Center has got a really good sense and an ear to the ground. They do talk to people regularly to make sure that they are aware of what’s going on out there and ways to, again, be a resource to people in the industry here so that we can take steps to work with them and perhaps prevent that bankruptcy.”
Farmers can contact the Wisconsin Farm Center(opens in new tab) online, email [email protected], or call (800) 942-2474.
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