Statz sought part-time work off the farm to help tide the family over before the harvest. Statz said, could convince him that the farm was in fact prospering. No amount of reassurance from his family or their bankers, Mrs. He grew convinced the farm was going under.

A sign out front proudly announces years of awards for dairy production. The Statz family farm is in the Driftless Area, a fertile, rolling swath of Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota and Iowa untouched by ice age glaciers and the rocky “drift” they left as they retreated. “It’s impossible to overstate the rural and urban difference when it comes to seeking behavioral health care,” Mr. The group is also calling for a national crisis line tailored to agricultural workers, separate from the 988 number. The association wants Congress to increase the stress assistance network’s funding to $15 million annually in the farm bill, and make it permanent. Last month the association, whose 21,000 members include rural hospitals and clinics, wrote to leaders of the House and Senate agricultural committees demanding greater attention to what its chief executive, Alan Morgan, called “a deep-seated and longstanding problem.” The National Rural Health Association agrees. Suicide rates in rural communities increased by 48 percent between 20, compared with 34 percent in urban areas. The rate of suicide among farmers is three and a half times higher than among the general population, according to the National Rural Health Association. Soon after her husband’s death she and several friends founded the Farmer Angel Network, connecting struggling farmers and their families with help, and with each other. “But I was compelled to talk about it,” Mrs. Statz knew suffered such losses in isolation, silenced by the stigma surrounding mental illness. A note in the pocket of his work pants described how depression had robbed him of the hope and pride he had in running a third-generation dairy farm. Statz, father of three, grandfather of one, was 57. Statz finished his morning chores, then ended his life. The deluge had fallen for weeks, flooding their fields, delaying the harvest, pounding the roof of the barn where Mr. Brenda Statz remembers the rain on the day they lost Leon, her husband of 34 years.

Against The Tide by Elizabeth Revill