Farming, Family, and Mental Health

Chris

Barron: Hey everybody, before we dive into today's episode of The Aggie Pitch, I want to invite you to check out our exclusive podcast, 19 Minutes. For just $30 a month, you'll have access to high-level business insights and new episodes that are released on the 9th, the 19th, and the 29th of each month. Topics include finance, cost of production, team health, taxes, collaboration, and much more. With 77 episodes already available, signing up gives you immediate access to all past and future content. Click on the link in the show notes and subscribe and start boosting your bottom line today. Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today we are going to have an interesting conversation with Josie Rudolphi, uh, faculty extension specialist at the University of Illinois. How's it going today, Josie?

Josie

Rudolphi: It's going well. Thanks for having me.

Chris

Barron: Well, I appreciate you being on here. This is a, I think for a lot of people, a difficult conversation, sometimes one that has a little stigma with it because I think we, you know, when we think of health, we tend to think of, you know, my knee hurts or my shoulder hurts or, you know, I need to eat better, whatever it is, you know, and we don't always think of mental health. And so that's kind of the conversation we're going to have today. In our observation with our team, with Ag View Solutions, we've noticed some pressure on, I think, on people, partially financial. I think there's just a lot of stuff going on in the world today too. Technology, complexity of things, family dynamics always enters into it, and sometimes is one of the main drivers is, you know, sometimes there's some dysfunction or how we grew up and then what's going on.

So I guess with all of those fun things that we all get to deal with, I want to start out and have you give a little introduction to yourself, kind of where you're at in, with Illinois and where you farm and live, and tell us a little bit about yourself first.

Josie

Rudolphi: Yeah, thank you. Well, thanks so much for having me, and thank you for really bringing the conversation around farm stress and mental health to maybe more mainstream. We really appreciate any opportunity we have to talk about this in front of ag audiences. So I'm Josie Rudolphi. I grew up on a farm in east central Iowa, corn and soybeans. We raised pigs for a while when I was a kid, but got out of that when everyone else— with everyone else who was losing money at a rapid speed in the '90s. I'm now in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois in Urbana. And I'm also an extension specialist. So I spend my time split between campus and sort of being out in communities working and talking with farmers. My background is in agricultural safety and health.

And so for a long time, I thought I'd be focusing on, as you mentioned, more of maybe the physical health aspects and protecting farmers from injuries, traumatic injuries, chronic injuries. Disability, those sorts of things. I thought I'd spend time thinking about tractor rollovers and hearing loss. But in 2017, we really came to recognize some of the stressors that agricultural producers are under, agricultural workers are under, and the impact that those are having on people's mental health. And so since 2017 or 2018, I've really been focused on the farm stress and mental health space. Have a number of research projects there to sort of describe how farmers experience mental health.

And then also excitingly, I direct the North Central Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Center, which is funded by USDA and works to expand resources and services to agricultural producers and others engaged in ag occupations around the country. So there are 4 of these centers nationwide. And like I said, I direct the North Central region, which is sort of a 12-state territory and basically the Midwest.

Chris

Barron: That's really interesting. I guess my first question then would be, what are you seeing in terms of, you know, it's kind of like health, you know, there was the pandemic, there was, you know, there's different health things that are viruses, but there's also, you know, back to the mental health side of it, we get in environments that sometimes generate external challenges and things that do? And are you seeing an uptick? Are you seeing— what are you seeing, I guess, is the question.

Josie

Rudolphi: Yes, that's a really good question. And it's, um, what I can say is that we consistently, regardless of, of who we survey— so a lot of the information we get about farmers, and especially their mental health, comes from surveys, interviews, and focus groups. And so my team, as well as colleagues from around the country, have been doing a lot of surveys of farmers to try to assess their symptomology for things like anxiety and depression. And we can talk about suicide, we certainly acknowledge that farmers are probably at higher risk of suicide. And that's been made very public by some, some like popular press articles in the last couple of years.

But when we, we think about anxiety and depression specifically, which are two of some of the most common mental health conditions, what we see is that farmers consistently report, I should say farm populations consistently report a higher prevalence of anxiety and depression when we compare that to the general population, even when we compare that to the general population during COVID So we know that everybody's mental health, uh, was challenged during COVID and we saw an increase in the proportion of people in the US who were reporting what would be considered, like, pretty serious symptoms of anxiety and depression. Um, but what we find is that that when we ask those same questions of the farm population, they consistently exceed even what we considered high during the, the pandemic.

So to put it in a little bit of context, in the US, we estimate that about 18 to 20% of the population experience anxiety or depression at a given time. Um, and when we do surveys of farm populations, we see closer to 60, almost 70% of people meeting the same criteria. So we're seeing almost twice as much, in some cases, anxiety or depression load in the farm population than non-farm.

Chris

Barron: Do you see that ebb and flow with the economy or with, you know, weather, all kinds of— I mean, what do you see that, what do you correlate that to?

Josie

Rudolphi: That's a really great question. So what we have not been able to do well yet, Chris, is consider how seasonality and how fluctuations impact a specific person over time. And so those are longitudinal studies that we would love to be able to do. They're expensive. And as you can imagine, they take a lot of time, they take commitment by not only researchers, but also farmers who are willing to say like, yeah, send me a survey every month, I'd love to fill that out, right? Like, it's hard to get that. But what we do see is that when we ask questions about sort of what are the most stressful conditions or situations people report on. We see a lot of people, as you already mentioned, talking about finances. So financial stress, more general economic stress are consistently the most stressful circumstances people talk about. We of course have weather.

We also have, as you mentioned, sort of the interpersonal relationships that exist on a farm. And what we find is that people who report more financial stress, people who report more economic stress, uh, people who report more interpersonal stress also report more symptoms of anxiety and depression. Um, and that's a relatively strong association. So we know that when you report more stress, uh, you're also more likely to be experiencing what we would consider a clinically significant caseload for anxiety or depression.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, it just compounds, I suppose, on its own. Yeah. You know, one of the things— so we work with a lot of families that are in the midst of transition and succession. Typically, I mean, there's some that's going to non-family in terms of transition and succession, but typically what we see is in every case there's some level of dysfunction. With all love and respect to all of our families, right?— and they're varying degrees.

One of the observations that I've always had is it seems like the more or the less they communicate, and the less communication, the more anxiety by the senior member of the business and their fear of the transition and their "how do I do this" type of thing has a direct impact on the next generation, even if their personality is quite a bit different, even if they're, you know, more adapted to the new world, let's say, and all that kind of stuff, it really starts to weigh on them. And, and so we spend a lot of time trying to help them communicate, but we see that creating a lot of stress on the next generation because there's just— these transitions are difficult, they're never done. Um, talk about that. Are you— do you see that with, you know, as a contributing factor as well, or is that just something we see because we're working in that arena?

Josie

Rudolphi: No, I think it's, it's definitely something we see and hear about as well. And to your point, it's, you know, ag is so, is relatively unique in this sort of this multi-generational family business. And we see that in other small businesses, right? People might sell or pass on a non-farm business to the next generation, but the way people get entrenched in farming. And the identity that it takes on makes it really, really hard to separate from that. Whereas if you own a— and I'm just making this up— if you own like a dental clinic and you're going to sell your dental clinic to your adult child who is also a dentist, and you're not living there every day, you don't go there every day. It's a lot different than trying to hand off a piece of farm ground where you may still live and where all the work is happening.

It may be your entire retirement, which I think a lot of people don't talk about. And so it becomes really, really challenging. And there's younger generations who are saying, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready. I need to be doing this because I have to start building my own system up. And then there's an older generation saying, we want to pass it on, but we need— we also have to make some money at this, and we have to be stable and secure. And we don't get to sell this to some stranger. We're selling this or transitioning it off to our family who we still want to have Thanksgiving with, and we still want to have these really special emotional connections with. And it creates a ton of stress. And so we have some partners in Wisconsin who have done a lot around succession planning.

And they're working to not only equip farmers with, and farm families with specialists in succession planning, whether they be attorneys or others, but also thinking about how do we bring in mediators and counselors to talk about how we're talking about this. And like you said, there's a lot with communication styles, and some people have been really trained in how to talk and communicate effectively and others, you know, haven't. And so it's a really challenging space to be in. And you consider gender differences in generations, people who are much more willing to talk about things in general versus those that are not. And every family has their own way of communicating, which makes it really challenging. And the expectations and things you sort of accept because you're in a family can make it a really, really challenging situation.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, that's for sure. I mean, and I, and I see exactly what you just said. I mean, we find ourselves facilitating the process, not, you know, and helping them visualize it by literally drawing it out so they can see where the entities are and how everything can move. But it's to you, exactly to your point, it's, it's the how you communicate and And even the biggest word we always figure out is the why. You know, why do you feel this way as the senior member? Why do you feel this way as the junior member? And getting all that on the table so everybody can understand each other a little better, I think, has been something that we've observed anyway. So I appreciate you mentioning that. It's definitely, definitely a key thing.

Josie

Rudolphi: I want to try— A challenge with it is—

Chris

Barron: oh, go ahead.

Josie

Rudolphi: No, go ahead. Well, I was going to say, you know, the other challenge with it is it's acknowledging your own sort of mortality, and, and that's a really challenging place for anyone to be in. So what we say— we see is people don't succession plan, and then somebody does die, and it's a— it's just so chaotic, um, and not figured out and not on paper such that the family is really challenged anyway. And you see— you— we have all heard stories of, of siblings who don't talk anymore because of Yeah, you know, arguments over wills and leases and land and livestock. And it's just a really unfortunate outcome sometimes.

Chris

Barron: That's the consequence we always tell people is, you know, and a direct impact on the mental health side of things, right, is, is the senior generation being transparent with the junior generation primarily so that the non-actively engaged siblings can have an understanding of why things are the way they are and it can be set up before mom and dad are gone. Because when they're gone, you talk about mental health and stress, especially for the actively engaged individual, it gets tough because, you know, you love your family and now all of a sudden you have all this conflict and it just— and a lot of it's just, and it's not always the fault of the non-actively engaged. A lot of times I hear, you know, well, they just want money. Well, no. They don't understand. It goes way back 10 years ago. They should have been— it should have been explained along the way.

And I think that, that has a lot to do with it. And, and to transition a little bit on back to the mental health component completely is, I think a lot of times— and I want you to hit on this— is, um, I think part of it with mental health, a lot of times we make these assumptions and we draw conclusions of something that we don't have enough information on. And sometimes we think well, that isn't going to work, or, you know, and it, and it has to do with, you know, people that are successful are going to hear negative things from other people too. And then sometimes it makes to get to the next level harder because, you know, you hear all these negative comments. How do you, how do you tell people to, to stay positive, ignore the noise, and stay focused on their trajectory and where they're going?

Are there any, you know, things that people need to be aware of or think about to stay positive and just, and just to know that things would probably work out?

Josie

Rudolphi: Yeah. So I think, and, and even, uh, not always asking people to stay positive because we know how challenging that can be, but I think one thing we, we often try to remind people or ask people is like, what do you know right now? Right? So we can, um, and I'm as good as anybody in like anticipating things that are not going to happen, but I'm pretty positive they're going to happen, right? And we can spiral for a very, like, well in advance of something actually happening. So we try to remind people to situate themselves as to what they know for sure today. You know, we know what the commodity prices are today. We have a lot of insight as to what could happen, what might happen. But asking yourself, how can you protect Given what you have and know today, how can you protect your asset, your income, etc.?

We have no idea where we're going to be in terms of— and I think we started sort of talking about who's planting and who's ready. And I said, we're not ready. We know we don't have to be ready today because the weather's not right anyway. And so we just think about— we could worry for a very long time about when it's going to be ready. Or fit environmentally and how we, what we're going to do that day. But until then, we're really sort of focused on the things we have control of right now. Because we have to acknowledge, I think the biggest advantage some people have in this industry is being able to acknowledge what you do and do not have control over, right? And there's so much in agriculture that we don't have control over. We don't get to set a price for our product. We don't have any control over the weather.

We don't have— unfortunately, we feel completely powerless in decisions that are being made at state and federal levels. And so we really have to reorientate ourselves to what we have control over and how we're going to make the best decisions for those sort of key components.

Chris

Barron: Mm-hmm.

Josie

Rudolphi: And we can worry— like I said, we can worry for the rest of the day about what commodity prices are going to do until market close. But that's, that's, uh, unfortunately a really unusual way to use the day.

Chris

Barron: Are there any, um, you know, everybody's different, you know, you have people who tend to worry more and you have people who it just, you know, it just goes right off their back and they don't worry about it. And, and I think sometimes, and it's kind of the same way, you know, we work in a lot of the financial areas with people too, and you have some people that take the numbers to the fourth decimal point and they're still frustrated because it's not exact. And then you have people that, that's close, let's roll, you know. Yeah.

Do you see any correlation in people's, you know, personality as it relates to, you know, directly to, you know, to depression or, you know, I guess what I'm getting to is what are some of the factors that, because sometimes, you know, some of the people that joke around and seem happy will surprise you and all of a sudden there's like, you know, maybe even a suicide or, or something, a breakdown of some sort. And they seemed like they were the happy one. How do we, how do we identify that or how do we figure that out?

Josie

Rudolphi: Yeah, that's a really good question. So, um, We— so I've worked with a colleague and we analyzed some data from the CDC. They have a national violent death reporting system. And so all violent deaths get put into this database. And it is an opportunity to— just like you asked, what are risk factors for people, especially in agriculture and suicide? And unfortunately, what we find is there are no real clear distinctions when we compare that to what we see in the general population. So farmers aren't more likely to be in legal trouble. They're not more likely, statistically more likely to be in financial trouble. They're not even, you know, statistically more likely to be having marital problems, which makes it a really kind of challenging situation to be watching for.

'Cause like you said, you might know somebody, they've always seemed quite jovial, never any concerns, and then, you know, there's a suicide in the community. We hear stories like that a lot, unfortunately. So that makes it really, really challenging to prepare people and educate people around what some of the signs or symptoms for suicide risk are.

One thing we do do is we have a number of organizations who are offering We call them mental health literacy programs, and it's the intent behind a lot of these programs is to train non-mental health professionals to be, to know the signs and symptoms of mental health conditions, to know what resources are available in your community, to know how to talk somebody through a crisis, to know who to connect them to if they need immediate intervention or help, because we acknowledge that our rural and agricultural communities are, really underserved, not just in healthcare, but especially in mental healthcare. And so what we tell people is we teach signs and symptoms, but we acknowledge that everybody's a little bit different. So, you know, a classic symptom is perhaps somebody who's not sleeping. And someone might say like, well, my husband never sleeps. Like he's never been a sleeper.

So what we really encourage people to do is consider how a person's personality or demeanor has changed in the last 2 weeks. And we say, if you can highlight differences in somebody, they're not sleeping, they're not eating, they're more agitated, they're more removed than they typically are, those are things we become concerned about. And we can say, I'm really concerned about you. I've noticed the last, you know, the last 2 times I've seen you, you've just seemed really tired. You seem like you're exhausted. You seem more agitated. And that's different than how you usually are, and that's why I'm concerned. So really being able to highlight changes in people, acknowledging that some people are just naturally more agitated than others.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. Um, are there any other things? I mean, you talked about, you know, there, you know, you can see like almost physical signs of, um, you you know, I wouldn't call it depression, but just like you said, a change in their personality, or, or, um, just them acting different or being agitated, like you said, being frustrated or a little short. That happens seasonally too, um, you know, we see it more so in row crop operations when you got a 10-day window or whatever, the weather's been crappy and then it's decent, now all of a sudden, you know, But, you know, everybody has a breaking point too, right? And some people can vent and then it's better. Some people hold it in. I don't like conflict, so I don't ever say anything. But then when I do, the world is going to explode because I don't like conflict, so I stay away from it.

Um, so you have people like that and people that are really good at just dealing with it along the way. Any, any suggestions on that for people with those two types of personalities and to deal with that stress.

Josie

Rudolphi: Absolutely. And to your point, it is quite cyclical what we see. And so we really encourage people is to— I kind of make the joke like, let's get back in people's business. So if we see somebody at a gas station, if we see somebody at the retailer, we ask, you know, how they're doing, and we can really normalize the situation. We're all— a lot of crop farmers right now are, are wondering when we're going to get started, anxious to get started. And we can really use statements like that to normalize talking about the situation. So you can say, uh, things like, oh man, I'm, I just feel, um, I want to say this correctly, but you might say, you know, oh, it's, it's been a terribly wet spring. We haven't been able to get anything done. How are you guys doing?

Right, that's not really the condition this year, but in really sort of leading with the way you're feeling about a situation, it really gives somebody the green light to also respond with honesty about how the situation's treating them. It's like, oh, we can't seem to get our planner put together. We just can't seem to get any headway. It's always something else popping up. We've been dealing with this, this, and this. How have you guys been doing, or how are you managing things? Um, but creating a space where you again, acknowledge that you've been challenged by the situation, so therefore you anticipate other people to be challenged by the situation. Um, the other thing we do is I, I always tell people, you may not be the best person for someone to talk to, um, but you might know somebody who may be better able to get through to them.

So if you, in passing, you know, and a good example on my own farm is probably my brothers. So I may not be the best person to say like, hey, is everything okay? You seem really agitated right now. You're frustrated and I'm worried about you. You know, you can't express that sort of sincerity for your siblings. Like, that just goes against everything we've ever been.

Chris

Barron: Supposed to fight.

Josie

Rudolphi: Yeah, we're supposed to fight nonstop. But I can call either of their partners and say, hey, uh, you know, my brother's on his way home. We had a really frustrating day at the farm. Can you just, you know, talk to him about it? Right? And, and I know that their wives are much in a much better place to get through to them probably than I am. And it might be making that phone call, uh, to a close friend of theirs, to a partner, like I said, a spouse, acknowledging that you may not be, like I said, the person they're going to open up to, but you know they need to talk to somebody, and thinking about who the, who the person of least resistance in that situation might be.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, to me there's always some code words that people say. Like, for example, if you say, how you doing? I'm fine. Fine almost is like a code word to me, like Okay, we better ask another question. Or I love what you said of the idea of, okay, who are they close to or who could talk to them? Maybe you go talk to somebody that could talk to— I really like that. I think that's a really good, excellent approach. I guess a couple of other things I'm curious on too is with employees. So a lot of our clients, and I know a lot of our listeners have employees and, And, you know, we're responsible not only as employers for their health, like their physical health, right, and their safety that you brought up at the beginning of the conversation. But I think we're also, you know, responsible to be a good employer and to understand what their needs are too.

And some of the best, we've got some clients that are just phenomenal at managing their team., and their retention is really, really good. They don't have hardly any turnover. Um, they have people knocking on the door wanting to work there. And the one common theme that I see with some of those operators is they're constantly talking to them about personal stuff. You know, they're bringing up, you know, birthdays. They're bringing up, you know, how's your kids? They know their kids, all that kind of stuff. Talk a little bit about the importance of that or the absence of that in terms of, you know, just being a good person, first of all, but also being a good employer and having, you know, because people want retention. And I think there's some turnover in this industry.

And I think a lot of it, at least from, again, my observation, learning from some of these people that do a really good job with retention, it just seems like they're very personal with the employees. Avi, talk on that for a minute.

Josie

Rudolphi: Yeah, absolutely. We think that's, you know, creating a culture that's not only physically safe, but also what we would say is like mentally and emotionally healthy is really advantageous for any workplace. So we know that obviously like workplace injuries cost employers, right? It's lost time, it's retraining, it's job assignment, reassignment, perhaps having to rehire. But we also know now that the, we think about psychosocial stressors. And so, you know, the working conditions that have less of an impact on your physical health, but certainly have an impact on your mental health are tremendously costly. And that then when people are stressed and/or experiencing a mental health condition, they are more likely to unfortunately make a mistake in the workplace. They're more likely to be injured. We have a lot of absenteeism, so people are consistently calling out.

We also have a lot of presenteeism, so that's when people are there, but they're also checked out, which just creates a really challenging workplace for an employer to be managing. But I think what we always, we really need to acknowledge is that hopefully people's job, it's just one component of them, right? And they're human beings with interests and priorities and responsibilities outside of work. And creating a space— and I think we've done a better job of this post-COVID— is acknowledging, yeah, the people bring a lot to work and they hopefully go home to a lot more. And so acknowledging the human dimension is quite complex. And creating an environment where people can be honest and saying like, oh, I had a childcare issue today and I just I need to be able to take care of this. I have doctor's appointments that I need to be able to prioritize.

And creating a culture that really values the person and not just the work then creates a culture of camaraderie where people want to be and want to stay because they acknowledge they're not just like a component of this much larger system, but they're actually a person and their employer recognizes that. Mm-hmm.

Chris

Barron: Interesting. You said something that I want to tee off of a little bit on the idea of, you know, we bring our personal life to work sometimes, right? And, you know, even in like in our team and our operation, I always tell people, if you're having a bad day, usually it's probably because— and sometimes it's at work, but sometimes it's you brought something with you It's like, just go home. All you're doing is creating a cancer for everybody else in the place. Go home. It's a— just get away. Go home and do whatever it is you need to do, and then you'll be way better off. Is— do you agree with that?

Josie

Rudolphi: Oh, absolutely. I think, um, yeah, people say leave it at the door.

Chris

Barron: Good luck.

Josie

Rudolphi: That's impossible to do. You can't do that. Like, you don't get to take off, you know, the emotional burden of, of not that all families are a burden, but, you know, like, there's so much to our non-work that we don't just get to take it off, like leaving your coat or your shoes at the door. Right. And so, yeah, it's going to be a distraction all day. And if it's going to be, you know, if you're waiting on a diagnosis or you've got an aging family, maybe an aging parent that needs, you know, help at their, at their house, or they need to be moved into a facility, or you have a child with a disability, like, there's just no way to turn those sorts of things off in your brain. And so giving people, yeah, take the afternoon and get your mom moved, right?

Take the afternoon and get, do what it is that you need to do because, yeah, not that we would hopefully say like, you're useless to me here right now, but acknowledging that they could be distracted, they could be checked out mentally. And those things do create a potential hazard in some workplaces. Um, and so it's like just, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's having some flexibility.

Chris

Barron: And it, and it might be back to what you said earlier is, you know, do you need, you know, what do you need? Is there anything you need? Maybe asking the question and maybe they open up a little bit. That's what I see a couple of these operations I was talking about that, you know, they feel safe and there's trust in the sense that, you know, they know that it's confidential and they trust their employee not only as an employee but as a person, right? And I think that's really a key, key thing. I want to take the converse side of this. Okay, so we talked about taking home to work. A lot of times I see people take work home. I'm guilty. Me, I do it all the time.

And so, you know, you'll be, you're going to have a date night or something, or you're going to do whatever with your spouse, or you're going to do something, you're going to go to a basketball game and watch the kids or whatever. All right. And you— it's so easy to talk about the farm and what went on, what needs to— what should have happened, what's going to happen tomorrow, and then maybe the next month. And, you know, and you can talk about it indefinitely. And I see that with families who farm, you know, you might have 4 siblings that all farm together and they get together for Thanksgiving and the entire conversation is about the farm and the spouses are like, oh, this is pretty fun, you know.

And so talk a little bit about just how we can— first of all, we need to recognize that as something so it's not our spouse saying, can we talk about something else for a minute instead of this work all the time? Um, how do we navigate that or how do we do that? Because I had a farmer one time tell me he had a tree in his driveway, and he would pull up to the tree, and if he had something he needed to say, he would say it at the tree, and then he would go in his house, and then he didn't bring it up unless it was asked and it was appropriate. Comments on that, or what suggestions you have for us that are troubled with talking too much about the farm and, and maybe not taking the work home as much?

Josie

Rudolphi: Yeah, that tree, I bet that tree has seen and heard a lot. I think it's, and I think it's especially challenging in farming because the take-home of work, because we live and work so often in the same space. And so I often talk about how, you know, growing up on a farm, the kitchen table is also the boardroom table. That's where all conversations about the farm are made. That's where taxes are done. It's really hard to think of that as the table we also have Thanksgiving at because there's just no separation for a lot of people between work and home. I have heard that it is, you can separate the two. I've talked to some of my friends whose partners are in farming. And one thing they really recommend or have worked on, because they also don't want to be having constantly be having conversations about the farm around children.

And I have a research project right now that's really looking at how sort of farm financial and economic stress may be impacting children's mental health. And so, so what they'll do is they say like, we obviously have to unpack the day a little bit, right? And we want to bounce some ideas off people and we need to talk about it. So they may set a timer, like, let's talk about work, or let's talk about the farm for like, the next 10 or 15 minutes, and then let's try really hard to talk about something else. And they may have cue cards, they may have conversation starters. You know, there's a lot of apps and games and other things like that that offer conversation starters. So some people have resorted to that. And there's obviously the news and other things that are happening in the world to be talking about.

But being really mindful about how much time you're talking about and setting physical whether it is a timer, uh, or some sort of kitchen timer or phone timer, um, to say, let's— I need to vent about this for like 10 minutes, but then I really want it to be over because I don't want it to consume the rest of our night. Um, but allowing space and acknowledging that, that there is some therapy to venting, um, that people need to talk, but then also saying, great, like, let's get it out of our system and hopefully, um, transition to something else for the night.

Chris

Barron: I like that. I mean, it the other term I've heard used. Um, so one of the things that we've done— and get your take on this too— is we always encourage people at a certain point with their business to build an office. Because farmers will, will buy a $600,000, a $500,000, $400,000 tractor and not even think twice about it, and then they'll trade it again and they'll buy other stuff. But, you know, and I'm not saying you got to put up a $200,000 or $400,000 office, but I'm saying a separate location to do business. Back to your kitchen table for Thanksgiving dinner, there's no boundaries, right? And, and, and I live actually personally, I live on our farm operation where I see everything going on. We have a pool where the kids use. I use it about twice a year.

And I know last year there was one day the guys were out working in the shop and Alyssa and I jumped in the pool and had a drink. And I'm sitting there watching the guys work and I'm thinking, most people this would probably— didn't bother me, but I was thinking 99% of the population, this would bother them. You know, they'd be like, well, first of all, they're working, I should be with them. You know, I should be helping them. I don't know why it didn't bother me that day, but it didn't. At all. Most people. And so, and so that's the boundaries. And I think, like you said, when you see it, farming is so visual that you cannot get away from it. Even if you move away from it, you go back and you drive around and you see stuff and it just, and it hits you, you know.

Any comments on, you know, yeah, comments on boundaries and how to navigate that and how to, you know, any, any suggestions there on navigating boundaries?

Josie

Rudolphi: Yeah, I think, I think if you have the means to put up, put up an office and try to build that physical separation between home and work, absolutely beneficial. I also think, you know, I've seen some, we've talked to some farm families who are really trying to sort of professionalize their farm a little bit. And I don't mean like building massive structures and, you know, putting key cards and like putting a, like a policy for, for clothing, right? It's not like that. But, but thinking about how do we Like you might see in a more typical work environment, how do we standardize working hours when we can? How do we standardize weekends when we can? How do we acknowledge that people need time off? They need time away from each other. You know, I think you're, you living on your farm and being in the swimming pool is a really good example.

So my parents live on the farm that I grew up on. It's kind of the headquarters. And I would imagine that every time somebody pulls into the shop, there's that gravitational pull from somebody who's in the house to go out there and see, do they need help? You know, it's easy. My dad, and he's probably put in, you know, 3 times the hours that me and my brothers have. But a truck comes up the driveway making dust, and his natural instinct is to go out and see what needs done. And it's really hard, I mean, you know, to not engage like that. So trying to set some boundaries. I talked to a farmer a couple years ago, and he said they decided during harvest they were not going to work Sundays. That was a relatively good year, you know, weather was consistent. There's a lot to consider there. But they decided we're just not going to work Sundays.

We're going to give it a couple of adult kids in their operation. They said, we're going to give people an opportunity to obviously spend time with their kids and their families, do the things that you can't get done during the week because they also had, you know, off-farm jobs. So, and they were running evenings and overnights in some cases. So really giving people an opportunity to do all the things that you usually do on a Sunday, get your lawn mowed, get your errands run, spend time with your kids, try to relax. Because trying to, you know, harvest 6 or 7 days a week was just unsustainable for people. And it gave people an opportunity to rest, be a little bit more reflective, come into Monday not feeling so annoyed that you just had to work your entire weekend. And they said that it extended their harvest season by 1 day from the previous year.

Now again, that's a luxury that sometimes we don't get. Sometimes for whatever reason, Sunday is the only nice day. During harvest season. But thinking about how can you offer breaks or time away from people such that they're not completely burnt out. And then acknowledging that everyone's not going to take a break at the same time because— and that's challenging to not become resentful, right? So if somebody's not working on a Saturday but you are, how do you say, that's right, I'm going to work this Saturday, but my brother is going to work next Saturday? Or, um, you know, we're going to sort of cycle through time off or breaks because we all need the time off, but we probably all can't take it at the same time.

Chris

Barron: I think, you know, you're hitting on one that is really a big, I think, stressor for a lot of people is time. I mean, we can all make more money eventually, but you can't make more time. And one of the things— I'll get your take on this— but one of the things that we've done in our operation, and we've implemented with a high percentage of our clients is time tracking by category of what's going on in the business. So, you know, the equipment, or if there's a livestock operation, or whatever— where is the time being spent? And one thing that we've seen come out of that, and, and it takes some discipline, and you got to explain why, you know, because a lot of people, it's like, well, I'm farming because I don't want to have to ever punch a damn time clock.

But You know, it's understanding if you've got multiple generations, especially if you got, you know, you brought up, you know, say you got 3 siblings farming together and sometimes the spouses know what's going on and sometimes they hear what's going on from their spouse. So they get one side of the story. And then all of a sudden what happens is you've got these opinions internally and externally of who's putting in the most time, who's doing more, who did this, who did that. That creates a whole nother layer of stress. Whereas if you can do the time tracking and then just be okay with it, maybe you adjust that. Maybe one family has younger kids, the other one's got older kids, different stages of life. And it's like, okay, I am putting in, you know, 400 less hours a year. You know, either sue me or change my compensation then or whatever, because I'm going to spend it with my family.

And then you have different, you know, any, any comments on that? I think because that's a communication thing. Any, any comments on how to navigate that or what do you— what's your thought on the time tracking or, or is there any other ideas you have there too to navigate?

Josie

Rudolphi: I think the time tracking is such a good idea because what I really think it does is it— and it's something we've implemented a little bit with some of my own staff in a, in a on campus because it, it helps you to really identify where you're sinking a lot of time. So even if you're not just trying to count hours and sort of see how, you know, where the, the labor equity may exist or not, um, what it really does is it offers you an opportunity to see where you're sinking time and whether that's moving your business forward or not, if you want to move forward. Um, so it's a great opportunity to think about shifting responsibilities, shifting priorities especially.

But I really like the idea of also acknowledging that, and I think for spouses in the program or people who are, yeah, who come into the operation thinking about how they can be, if you can't give time but you wanna be involved, what else can you give? And we often see it in the opposite. Like if you can't give money but you can give time, You know, you can't buy in, but you can, you know, maybe contribute some sweat here. You can start to build yourself into the system. And I think there are opportunities for people to contribute even if they can't physically be there. There's certainly other opportunities for people to contribute. And so it also helps to identify ways that somebody may be contributing without giving the hours. But should certainly be acknowledged.

And I especially think of in-laws and partners and people who are, who have taken over childcare in the fall because everyone else is in the field. And I think that should be acknowledged and appreciated and respected. But I really like the idea of time tracking for a lot of different reasons, but certainly just in sort of the acknowledgement of the way people are contributing to the farm and how they should be celebrated for that.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, it's, it's an interesting thing too. It's once you get a year or two worth of data because then you can have an actual conversation because if you have two people, you have two opinions and they're both wrong. So, you know, it's interesting. I kind of want a couple of things. We've covered a lot of ground. Couple other things I want to hit on, um, as we get closer to wrapping up. But, um, talk a little bit about just the— I know there's a lot of, you know, 30, 40-somethings that, that listen to this podcast because we can kind of see where people are at, and we get anywhere from a couple thousand to maybe as much as 10,000 on some episodes in the podcast. And so talk to the listener a little bit about the younger, that, that 30, that 40-something that feels like the transition isn't happening quick enough and there's some frustration.

How do you, how do you, what do you tell them to now, how do they navigate that? Are there any key things that you think they should be talking about with their senior partners or their family members? Um, why don't you, I want you to hit on that for a second and then a couple other follow-ups.

Josie

Rudolphi: Yeah, and that, and that's really challenging and certainly family specific, but I think when it comes— what I've seen with some success with, with, uh, succession planning, you know, is you— it's, it's not a conversation that happens once, um, and it's really, it's, it's a long process. It's a lot of conversations. And I think that, um, both parties— and I'm thinking like the older generation, the younger generation— are probably starting to think about it or have thought about it, uh, but each is a little perhaps unwilling to be the first to bring it up. And so I think what's really valuable is to start planting seeds and really brief conversations, short conversations, informal conversations about where do you see the farm in the next couple of years? Do you know people have— do we have interest in moving into X, Y, or Z, or away from A, B, and C?

So that the two generations start to see whether they align and how they align for the future. And then start asking questions about when people think they want to start scaling back. And I think it's, you know, we don't say when you want to quit and hang it up and go, you know, die. It's when do you want to scale back? How do you want to spend your time as you get older? How much time do you want to be spending on the farm? Do you have other ambitions? Are there other things that you and, and, you know, the other parent had planned to do in in as you got older that you haven't been able to do yet. So I think we get, unfortunately, a lot of conversation is around somebody exiting the farm as a means to get somebody else in, a younger generation more involved. And then I think that we hopefully phrase it as it's giving this older generation an opportunity.

They've worked probably hard their entire life. An opportunity to go enjoy things or do things that maybe they have never had time for. And finding— striking a really great balance where they can be involved, they're probably going to have to be financially involved somehow. Because I think, unfortunately, we don't have great retirement systems set up for farmers. Land and livestock are their retirement. And so unless that's being sold. There's just not always a lot of cash available to support somebody. But I would encourage— I really encourage people to start having informal conversations early, being very transparent, making sure that people— not that we have to be on the same page, but I think you need to know what pages people are on. Do not expect that this is going to happen overnight. You're not going to be handed the keys like just randomly one day.

These are big, long conversations that typically involve, you know, and depending on how official you want to be, you may involve certainly an attorney or other sort of planner, but pulling together the resources as you can and acknowledging, I think, you know, really acknowledging what some of these older generations have put together and what they have built. And out of respect, thinking about what's starting to approach those conversations in a really respectful way. And not to say I'm ready to take this thing over and I'm going to make it great. Because it probably is great, but thinking about building a working partnership where eventually somebody gets to phase out and do it and do some other things. It's true. It's hard. I don't know of any family that's like done it perfectly.

Chris

Barron: But one of the things I hear a lot, I want to get your two cents on in this. The question I asked is that, you know, we've, with some of our clients, we've called it graduation. You know, think of it as, you know, you're graduating to get to do other stuff. And a lot of times it's their identity though. It's like, I don't want to do other stuff.

Josie

Rudolphi: So much stuff.

Chris

Barron: Okay, well then do the fun stuff. You know, what do you not like doing and what do you like doing? Plan on just doing more of the fun stuff. And if you don't like doing something, you don't have to do it anymore. Maybe you'll find something you like to do.

Josie

Rudolphi: Exactly.

Chris

Barron: I want to get your two cents on this. Um, I've heard it from a number of fathers, in particular with fathers and sons. There's, there's like this, um, and I— and we've got some daughters that have come back to the farm, and, and we don't see it as much. Sometimes there's a little bit of, um You know, I don't know if it's just that gender difference or what. It's like, you know, it's like, as our observation, she can do it probably better than, than a son would have, you know, that's taken over. We've got, I don't know, 4 or 5 operations where it's the daughter literally taking the farm over. But we've seen some conflict more so with father and son where, in particular, I think the father feels like there's not appreciation for what has been done. And also, I think inclusion as things transition.

And it's not that they're going to— they want to necessarily interfere, but they want to know what's going on. And so as they let go and things are being done a little bit differently, then they feel like they're not even included. And I think a lot of times it's just a matter of Hey, 36-year-old, tell— just tell your dad what the hell you're doing. That's all he wants to know. And he may say, why are you doing that? And give you a bad time. Just let it go in one ear and out the other. Comments on that, because that's something that we see a lot that I think stresses people. And yeah, just let it go. But easier said than done. How do we deal with it?

Josie

Rudolphi: I think, uh, From my observations, there seems to be more of a rub when it's a father-son.

Chris

Barron: Mm-hmm.

Josie

Rudolphi: Definitely. And I think some of that are unfortunately gender norms that have been baked into ag specifically. Mm-hmm. Yes. Sort of the, the keeping cards relatively close to the chest, not disclosing in general, being less willing and interested in talking about things, disclosing things. Uh, and so I think exactly to your point, there's a little eagerness on the Sun side to be taking over, maybe lack of appreciation, lack of respect about what's in, in the sit— in a specific situation we're talking about, you know, a father has built and been able to contribute and provide for his family, um, probably with the help of other people, but we all, we often acknowledge, um, uh, the man's contributions.

But, um, then, yeah, being kind of phased out, uninformed, uh, perhaps because they weren't a role model for, for sharing and talking and providing justification for why decisions have been made.

Chris

Barron: Doesn't fall too far from—

Josie

Rudolphi: it's like looking— yeah, looking at yourself in the face and saying like, well, you know, I never told— while these people were growing up, I never really told them what was happening. And so I surmise that—

Chris

Barron: Good job. I will also view.

Josie

Rudolphi: Yeah. Yeah. What does that mean? So never heard that. But so I think it's sort of acknowledging that the shoe will be on the other foot, and then that's a really uncomfortable place to be. And so that's where I really encourage if you're younger and moving into this, and I think women are naturally better at this, unfortunately. Being a little more, asking a lot more questions. Acknowledging when we're, things were, you know, things were not as comfortable with. We were more interested in asking questions, making sure we have clarity on things. And so that's what I really encourage younger people to do is, is being as involved as you can and asking a lot of questions and appreciating what other generations have provided. And built. And then keeping them informed as they're transitioning out, continuing to keep information flowing.

And I think your point exactly is like, we want to offer the next generation the opportunity to do the things they want to do, right? They did things they had to do for a very long time. And so now if you don't want to touch a corn planter again, like, I hope you never have to, if you never want to, right? But if you really love scouting, which would be weird, but some people like it, we want you to do that all summer. If you really enjoy fixing equipment, great, you'll be like the shop manager. If you really enjoy the chemistry and, you know, soil sampling, like that's where you can invest your time. Or you want to do on-farm trials somewhere, you want to get really interested in some other, you know, component of this, like let your— sink your time and brain into that.

But this mundane, you know, paying the bills and making sure seed is ordered, you know, time— you can hopefully you get to hand that off to somebody else now.

Chris

Barron: I think what you're bringing up too is, is really good because it's— we see this all the time too, which creates stress. And in this whole thing that we're talking about is just unclear roles and responsibilities. For everybody. It's not just— it's, you know, okay, well, what if you're going to transition? Then what clearly are going to be your roles? What are your responsibilities? What are you accountable for? But also, what are you not accountable for? And by the way, Dad, I'm going to let you bitch at me once in a while, and I'm just going to take it and let it go in one ear and out the other, because it is good constructive criticism. And I, I tell fathers and sons that all the time. The dad says something to the son, it goes in this ear and out that ear.

And then the dad says something that comes back in this ear, goes out that ear, and they don't— they, they hear each other, but they don't listen. And yeah, and then that creates even more stress both ways, you know. And so, so that's kind of why I was looking for, you know, and I appreciate, you know, some of the things you've brought up is just the— some ways to kind of deal with that and make sure we're— I mean, it always comes down to communication, doesn't it?

Josie

Rudolphi: I mean, it just always comes down to communication. Yeah. And figuring out, you know, it's also figuring out how people want to communicate. It's weird, but like even face-to-face, some people don't want to be face-to-face. And so figuring out what works best for your family. Are you guys talking over the phone? Even, are you riding in a vehicle? So we know that a lot of really good conversation happens when you're sitting beside somebody. There's a little less eye contact. So the conversation, you might be more willing to say things when you're side by side than when you're like facing each other. So we know that car, you know, being in a truck, being in a vehicle is a really good opportunity for somewhat casual conversation. People also say, I say like, I ask people, so where, where, where are you sitting next to somebody?

Trying to remind people that the car is a really great place to have some of these conversations. And we hear parents talk about this a lot. They have really great conversations with their adolescent kids when they're driving to and from basketball and home from different things. And I've heard people say like, I'm gonna miss our car time because we have really great conversations there. Well, we ask farmers this and we say, so where, you know, what opportunities do you have to sit by somebody side by side and have some of these conversations? And we think of the vehicle, but they also think of the bar. So you do have to sort of consider, you know, where you're having some of these conversations and whether they're prime for the car or prime for the bar.

But I think there's opportunities for really casual conversations and figuring out how people want to communicate and how they'll communicate best. Yeah, because some people just don't like talking over the phone. They're really uncomfortable there. Some people, working side by side, working together is a really good place to just ask some really casual conversations, or start, I should say, casual conversations about how the week's going, where, how you see the fall going, what some of the, you know, what we need to get done, who's going to be doing them, how we prioritize things. What do you think?

Chris

Barron: What do you think about, you know, we talked earlier about sort of, and I'll use this terminology, but like you'd kind of brought up the family dynamics or the family governance, I'll just call it that. And then there's business governance. What do you think about, um, the helpfulness potentially with a lot of families that work together don't necessarily do business governance? I mean, I, I like, I love the idea of what you're saying because that breaks the ice But then getting together to eliminate some— because this is another area we see some issues sometimes, is triangulation communication, where you got 3 people or 5 people in the operation, they go for that truck ride, and a decision is made between Dad and the one brother.

And then 4 days later or a week later, something shows up or something happens, and the other 2 are like, oh, that's neat, I didn't— that would have been nice to know. You talk about mental health, you know, that's a frustration that really— do you have any— I mean, I tell people like, you know, decide what is enough meetings. You don't— I mean, you don't need a thousand different meetings and you can overdo it too. But is it once a month? Is it twice a week? Is it a huddle every morning? Is it— because it's different for everybody. But do you have any suggestions or thoughts on just the importance of meetings and then how much documentation to eliminate some of the stress stuff. Do you think, do you, you know, any comments on that?

Josie

Rudolphi: Yeah, I think it really kind of depends on the size, right? So if you have, uh, 4 siblings and their partners, and, you know, unfortunately the bigger it gets, the more meetings you probably need to have, right? Or at least the communication channels need to be clearly defined. So maybe you have a series, you know, we put together a number of group texts depending on the season, um, so that the truck driver, the combine driver, the auger wagon, and at least 2 or 3 other people know what's happening. But yeah, but, but at the— we, we typically have seasonal meetings. And so, and we get out big pieces of paper anymore, and we make lists of things that have to happen from machinery to agronomy to sort of logistics. We make big lists of things and hang them up in the shop and check them off. You know, as they're done and assign them as they need to be done.

The challenge is the decisions that are made sort of casually, like you mentioned, where one or two are privy to it, and then a piece of equipment shows up and you're like, where did this come from? And then the way that makes people, it can make people in the operation feel as though they're not either involved in the decision-making, privy to what's being decided on, is really, really challenging. And like I said, the bigger that group gets, the more challenging it can be. But I think seasonal meetings work for a lot of people. But as you get bigger, it might have to be more monthly. And then I think acknowledging that if you've been included in a decision, you might think, who else would want to know about this right now? Right? And how— if my dad tells me something, I often think, oh, I wonder if my brother should know about that, right?

Um, because it's gonna— whatever we can do to prevent that rub that could potentially lead to a blister at some point.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, you hurt somebody's feelings, it takes a while.

Josie

Rudolphi: Yeah, and you don't want to be the one. Yeah, and you can probably put yourself in the shoes and you've, you've had your feelings hurt too. And so it's, uh, yeah, hopefully you start to think about who else— yeah, who else would want to know about this and should know about this, right?

Chris

Barron: Well, I think we've had a really good conversation. We've covered a lot of ground. Um, I do want to, um, get you back sometime, um, with the research you said that you're doing with the kids and their involvement, because we see, you know, a lot of our clients have, you know, kids of all ages, but a lot of kids in that middle school type age. And, and at a certain point you wonder you know, how much transparency is appropriate and how much transparency isn't appropriate. I think it depends on a lot of factors. And so I think that's a whole nother topic that, um, I think we need to follow up with, um, on another conversation, um, for sure. Yeah, I think that would be really good because I've got some case studies, so it'd be fun to, to dialogue on that and say, okay, you know what, you know. So I think the listeners can look forward to that.

And if anybody has things that they would like us to hit on, on that, if we have that conversation here in a month or two here, um, to please reach out with an email. Um, I guess what I want to do here as we finish up is kind of give you the last word. Um, as we've talked about, you know, a lot of situational things, it correlates to mental health, right? We've talked about, you know, a gamut of things. And kind of maybe how to navigate those things. But talk a little bit about, as we wrap up, what do you want the listeners to take away as it relates to mental health, understanding each other better? And we didn't really hit specifically on suicide. If there's anything you want to bring up there or whatever, I'm going to give you the last word and have you narrate the last part of the conversation here.

Josie

Rudolphi: Yeah, I appreciate it. So one thing we, we really try to remind people is that we all have mental health, just like we all have physical health. So we're really trying to normalize, uh, just like our physical health is not always great, our mental health may not always be great. And we, like physical, like physical health, our mental health is a spectrum between, you know, excellent to poor, um, and we're moving through that always, but we're never really that stagnant. And so we can have really poor days And that doesn't mean our mental health is never going to improve.

So what I encourage people to do is to fill their toolbox with things that they know help them through some of their more stressful times and rely on those, whether it's keeping a notes app on your phone or, you know, reminding, telling other people, hey, when I'm— these are the things that really help me through some of my toughest times. Because sometimes when we're in those toughest times, we can't always think about what it's going to take to get us out of them. So filling a toolbox with things, social support, hobbies, things we use to relax, blow off steam, those sorts of things. Hopefully they're mostly healthy. Have those nearby, especially as we're going into a relatively stressful time. We encourage everyone to be trained in Mental Health First Aid or other sorts of literacy programs so that they can be helpful advocates in their communities..

And then we also really hope that people have a number of resources at their disposal. So farmstress.org is a website that we publish. It has a number of hotlines that are available. It has a lot of resources that are specific to farmers and ranchers. We think it's a great landing page and a place to, again, find resources that you might find beneficial for yourself or for others. And if you have any questions about things that are happening in a 12-state region, that's sort of Canada down to Missouri, the Dakotas over to Ohio, please feel free to reach out to me. My email is josier@illinois.edu. And if we don't have something that can be useful to you, we think one of our partners in the 12 states could, and we're happy to connect you with that. But yeah, I really just encourage people to prioritize themselves and their loved ones.

Especially, yeah, I think we're all moving into what I consider to be the most stressful time of the year. I think this is when, yeah, harvest, it's all done. But this is really where we think, you know, we really make, I think we acknowledge that this is, this is, this is what sets us up for the rest of the year. It's incredibly stressful and we need to be safe and healthy out there.

Chris

Barron: Awesome. Well, I think, I think it's been a great conversation. Like I said, I'm sure there's a thousand other things we can discuss in this topic. Just to, to keep people healthy mentally, I think it's really a key, a key thing. And you're, you're doing a great job. Really appreciate the, what you're doing in that arena because it's such an important thing. And I think, I think it gets overlooked and I think it gets stigmatized some, and it really shouldn't. It's just It's life. It's, it's part of it. And people are important, and we want to make sure people are, are content and happy. And, and, you know, so with that said, again, I really appreciate it. We will make sure and have the farmstress.org in the show notes so people can click on that.

We'll also have your email, Josie, in the show notes too, so that, that way if people need to reach out to you, got questions, they can definitely do that. But, um, Jodi Rudolphi, really appreciate your time, uh, University of Illinois Extension specialist, and, and it's been a great conversation. Thank you.

Josie

Rudolphi: Yeah, thank you for having me.

Chris

Barron: You bet. And, uh, been a great conversation. If anybody has, again, more information, more things that you want to know on the mental health side of things, let us know. Again, uh, keep an eye out for 19 Minutes too if there's things in there that you'd like us to be doing. On 19 minutes, let us know. We could even do a couple of specific topics here with Josie too on that if you guys want us— want anything there. So with that said, thanks everybody. We'll catch you again next time on the Ag View Pitch.