Rural Stress
A farmer driving a tractor over rolling fields of crops ready to harvest is often the idyllic image associated with farm life. In reality, the life of a farmer is often wrought with worry and financial stress due to a variety of factors from crop disease and destructive insects to violent storms, drought, and damaging floods. All of these factors and more contribute to the sobering fact that the suicide rate among farmers is the third highest of any vocational group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.