AgWellness Episode 11: Interview with Lori Mercer, Farm Aid Hotline
Josh Dallin 00:11
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Episode 11 of the AgWellness Podcast. I'm Josh Dallin. And I'm joined with my colleague Jake Hadfield today. And we have a very special guest at Lori Mercer, who is a Farm Aid operator as part of the Western Regional Agricultural Stress Assistance Program (WRASAP). We're very grateful to have Lori with us. And, Laurie, as we begin here, we want to just maybe ask if you wouldn't mind giving us a short introduction of yourself and telling us a little bit about your connection to the ag community.
Lori Mercer 00:50
Thank you, it's an honor to be here. And I'd be happy to kind of give that little bit of context before we go further. My, my journey to this point is very convoluted. So I'm going to try to give you the short version, but essentially, I was a private practice audiologists for 30 years, before transitioning into agriculture. And there were there were a number of issues that kind of came along, that made me rethink what I want to be doing for the next while. And one of the the Spurs for me was that we have two sons who are now in their 30s. But at the time, it was it was evident that they were along with so many young younger folks today, were grappling with this climate change dilemma and what what they were inheriting what quality of life looked like to them. So I decided when I went to another career to do something that would have to maybe have some impact in that arena. And that kind of led me to looking at agriculture, since we all know that agriculture can be a force for great good and it can be a force for for damage, or destruction. So I wanted to learn more about how we can use agriculture as a way to mitigate climate change. And that took me to WSU in 2016, to complete a master's degree in agriculture, with a focus in agro ecology. And so with that in hand, I've been with farming for almost Well, I guess, almost two years next month, I never expected to be in a position where I would be able to directly interface with producers across the country, especially on such a personal level. So that
that's really been an honor. In I just, I'm learning all the time, but I also feel very confident that the services of the hotline team are providing are making a tangible difference for folks across the country.
Jake Hadfield 02:56
Well, that's awesome, Lori. And that's, that's a pretty unique background, I think, especially on how, you know, you got involved with agriculture and whatnot. And so you kind of already talked to us a little bit about how you got involved with like the Western Regional Agricultural Stress Assistance Program, as well as Farm Aid. But do you want to tell us a little bit more about your work with it as well as maybe I don't know how many of our listeners actually know exactly what farming is maybe explaining that a little bit with them as well.
Lori Mercer 03:27
That's probably the best place to start. So Farm Aid, was started in 1985, in the midst of that very deep farm crisis, during those years, when Willie Nelson held a large, extensive concert to raise funds. And from that grew this nonprofit Farm Aid. So we've been around ever since 1985. In general, Farm Aid
works in a couple of different areas. One is that we're very active in policy work and advocacy. So for instance, right now, farming is very busy with working towards having a fair farm bill in 2023. We still hold that festival every year. So we're different across the country in September. And that's a great lineup of musicians. And we have a homegrown village where you can learn all sorts of information about farm farming in the state that we visit that year. And that those funds all go towards, you know, letting us flooding us exist for another year, as well as granting out somewhere between about $800,000 and a million dollars a year to other nonprofits on the ground that are supporting our ranchers and farmers. And then the other wing is us. That's the direct farmer services line where the hotline is able to interface with with folks across the country and help them with their with their needs. So that's kind of the overview of Farm Aid In terms of a hotline, we really are there to basically connect folks with the best resources for whatever it is they're looking for. As we all know, the stressors that these folks are facing are unique, very different than many other professions. And they're often beyond their control. So things like weather and natural disasters and trade policies and commodity prices. And you know, where you live is where you work. And you're often working with family. And injuries can affect your ability to allow the farm to survive all those types of things, even even the pressure that comes with being in a multi generational farm, is those types of things are not something that everybody in the general public understands. And oftentimes, because of that producers are more comfortable speaking with folks who understand those unique demands and lifestyles in our hotline team reflects that. You know, we've had it structured deliberately to be able to address that concern. So for instance, right now, I'm there with a master's degree in agriculture, we've got a retired extension agent, as a hotline operator, several of our operators have farmed or worked on farms or worked in farmer's markets. And another just completed her master's degree in food and agricultural law and policy degree. So we're all you know, enmeshed in this, this culture of farming understand the demands quite well. So hang in there with me now, as we talked about.
Josh Dallin 06:48
I think that that was I think that's perfect. I think that's absolutely perfect. So I actually might my question, my next question has to deal with the hotline. And might get a little bit more personal and and allow you to share a little bit more with with maybe the listeners that are that are tuned in. So the question that I have is, What does a typical call to the Farm Aid hotline sound like? And what are the most common concerns among callers? So we'll start there, because I have some follow ups for you too.
Lori Mercer 07:25
Sure. Why there's no such thing as a typical call, to be honest. And I do want to qualify, I tend to say farmers simply for efficiency. But when I say farmers, it's an umbrella term for all of our farmers, our ranchers, fisherfolk, farm workers. So I just want to make that clear, because I don't want to dismiss anybody who you know, who's contributing to our food system. In any respect, it's essentially a shortcut. So having said that, we could have so many different kinds of calls in the same shift that it's just kind of mind boggling. We supply both national resources, so things like maybe USDA Farm Service Agency programs, you know, we'll be able to share information about that, or national nonprofits. But we're always trying to find the best local expertise for these folks who are in tune with that, you know, that that ecosystem that they're functioning and in that community, or that county or that state, so that takes a lot of work. The resources that we we again, we supply resources for anything, but the resources typically fall into certain categories. And some of those categories are more topically focused. So for instance, people might call for things like meeting a farm business management consultant, or they're looking for funding, or they they're looking for direct marketing assistance or legal support or conservation efforts, activism, land access, succession planning, factory farm issues, all those types of things are topical. But we also have resources for certain kinds of demographics that call us so for instance, we've got a large library of information for beginning farmers, veteran farmers, bipoc farmers, LGBTQIA, farmers, tribal farmers, women, farmers and farmers with disabilities as well as farm workers. So there's a lot of different categories that we might be ending up talking with folks about and to be honest, most people have requested cover more than one of those categories, sometimes many. I can say that for this past year, the most common inquiry was mostly about finding capital or funding In certainly if we look back at each year, at the end of it, we see trends in the calls that reflect what was going on in the country in general. So this year, some of our more common calls involve high input prices. You know, hay prices are high fertilizer, prices are high, sea prices are high, gas prices are high. And a lot of natural disasters, especially drought in the summer and fall months in the western states. So if that's typical, that's kind of what calls sound like.
Josh Dallin 10:33
I love that you've said that, and, I really love the explanation of all of those different things, right? Because when it comes to mental health, and when it really comes to, you know, individuals, that's that's what it is, right? It's individuality. There can be a lot of common stressors and things that we're experiencing, but we're all unique. And that's why there's so many resources and the flexibility right for, for having these types of typical situations. But I guess a follow up question that I have for you, without sharing personal information. Is there a specific call that that may be impacted you the most up to this point?
Lori Mercer 11:21
Yeah, there is, um, there are lots of call s that really kind of you know, stick in the cobwebs of your mind, but the one call, it's still, it's still stays with me was the spouse of a farmer who had called and, and the farmer, the gentleman was certainly very much, you know, discussing self harm. I would almost say to the point of planning self harm, she was looking for help when he was away from from the house for a few minutes. And that was just a tough situation. Because, you know, I wasn't able to speak with him directly, which is what we'd like to be able to do. We knew firearms were involved in the situation, and they were not secured. Which brings up a whole other, you know, conversation about firearm safety, I have no issues with firearms with with farmers, there's certainly a need for it. But in terms of practices that keep them safe, that's really critical. So I did the best I could with staying with her on the line trying to stay there until they got a family member to them, and then located some emergency places that they could try to steer him to towards, towards getting to, but the hard part is you just don't know. You don't know how that turned out? You know, as a hotline, we're not case managers. We
don't...we never find out what happens on the other side. And I think about them an awful lot.
Jake Hadfield 12:55
Wow, that's really interesting. I had never thought about it from the operator's point of view on that. Lori, like you're saying we're, I mean, sometimes there's no closure, you have no idea what is happening on the other end. And so thank you for sharing that with us. We really appreciate that. Earlier, you had talked about some resources. But I was just wondering, what are some of the best resources that as an operator you utilize, with information support ect. to provide for the people who call Farm Aid? Are these resources online? Are they easily available? That's kind of a loaded question, but I'll let you answer that.
Lori Mercer 13:38
That's a great question. And that kind of goes into how, you know, how do folks get in touch with us? If they need help? So I'm going to kind of slip that in there as well. It is not only the phone call to answer that question. There are there are several ways folks to answer us or find information. So they can call us. And I'm not sure I've got a lot of you know, I've got some websites here that I can share. I don't know if you, you know, submit those online later or what, but I've certainly got some we can share in some fashion. So they can call us at 1- 800-FARM-AID Farm Aid, which also translates into 1-800-327-6243. And we are available between 7am and 8pm Mountain Time, which means 6am to 7pm. Pacific time on Mondays through Fridays. They can also submit an online request for assistance form or they'll go through a series of questions to try to winnow down to what they're looking for as well as we can. And that's a website I can share if they want to do that. The other way is if someone's up at two in the morning and can't sleep, they can actually get on to form a website and there's another link I can share. We'll get them to the Farmer Resource Network, which is really that online resource directory where they can let themselves the resources page based on their location, I will say that if they can call or submit a request, it does render more specific, accurate information for us to work with. So that's probably going to get you a better result. And we try our darndest to get back we do our research and try to get back to folks within two days with with our referrals and suggestions. Unless, of course, it's an urgent one where we move on quickly. So having said that, tell me the other part of your question again.
Jake Hadfield 15:35
Well, I think you hit it on the head, I think I mean, that was pretty much that was the majority of my question there is, what are the resources available? And one thing I'll let you know is that we will get those links from you. And we'll put them in the description of our podcast episode, so people can click on them and direct. That's great
Lori Mercer 15:55
Thank you. All right.
Josh Dallin 15:57
Now, as Jake mentioned, I think that's a great, great explanation of what what's available and how that process works. My question pertains to overall usage of the Farm Aid hotline, do you have any idea? You know, numbers wise, wise, or how widely used the hotline has been since it since it started?
Lori Mercer 16:19
Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, it means that the hotline was not a formalized program in the beginning. But as soon as we we held that concert in 1985, the new nonprofit farm aid office started getting calls from farmers looking for help. So the staff were it was just there at the time, started answering the phone and trying to help people out. That gradually evolved into a one person hotline for a long, long time. And with the funding that came from the USDA, and the 2018 Farm Bill, which created WRASAP the Western Regional Agricultural Stress Assistance Program, that allowed us to expand now to four hotline operators and two managers in two of those are now on the West Coast, that's myself and my partner, and then two are also on the east coast. So that expanded our hours and our, our availability. So it's been around since then, this past year, we do keep really good records of this. So I can tell you exactly this past year, we had 829 contacts with folks. And that was actually a 40% increase from 2021. And what we found mostly is that Texas was the state that we got the most calls from, and then California was second in that was very much surrounding drought, natural disaster phone calls.
Josh Dallin 17:54
Wow, that's, that's really interesting, and very telling of how much this really serves as a resource and how it you know, I love how you brought up the the drought things, right? I mean, there's enough stresses enough in agricultural production, as you mentioned, but you start adding these other factors, that is just one more layer of of stress and things that are completely an entirely out of an individual's control. Right. And, and I'm just really glad that people are utilizing these resources, and that it's showing that they are. So thanks for sharing that.
Lori Mercer 18:32
Yeah, you're welcome. It is fascinating. I will say I one thing that that just struck me today is how, how important it is for us to be front and center when people are looking for help. My my colleague, Rachel, other West, west coast operator had posted the New York Times article today about mental health hotline work. And one of the individuals that was interviewed said, it's like dealing with a cable company when you're in the midst of a crisis. And I understand that, I mean, if you don't know where to start, at the very time that you need help now. That's just overwhelming. And so that's that's just really drove home. How, how much we are trying to be, you know, our visit, increase our visibility so that when people run into this situation, they're not having to get on, you know, getting on why or they can imagine that in the middle of a crisis.
Jake Hadfield 19:41
I think that analogy is amazing. Lori, I really like that analogy because I think it's true. A lot of times the mental health piece, you know, trying to get a hold of a cable company in a crisis that is, that is just great. I really like that. Well, Lori, we really appreciate Coming on just one last question for you, is there anything else you want the listeners to know, you know, or the ag community in general, to know about, you know, those agriculture stress Assistant Program, or the Farm Aid hotline or farming in general?
Lori Mercer 20:15
Oh, boy, I try to keep just a couple of things here. Yeah, just to clarify that foreign aid is a partner with the Western Region Agricultural Stress Assistance Program, and what we call WRASAP. That's, that's the acronym for that one is composed of 13 Western states in the four territories, western territories that are working to address the impact of farm stress and offer solutions and strategies for that. And so we act as their hotline service, the Western Regional agricultural stress Assistance Program, we also do
the same thing for a similar program in the northeast, that's part of the same USDA funded program coming out of the Farm Bill. So that's important to kind of tie together how that relationship works, I think for folks. And I guess the other thing I would say is that while Well, we are not technically a crisis, hot crisis line. You know, we we provide service for an awful lot of things. And farm stress is you know, one portion of those calls, we are equipped to handle folks, and to handle and serve folks when they
are in crisis, all the members have been trained in Mental Health First Aid. So we're very comfortable doing that work. But I would say if someone's really, really needing urgent help with a suicide threat, that calling that new 988 number is another great way to go in that respect. So I would like to just kind of clarify, that's how we work we are we are equipped, we are capable. But the 988 number is that's that's all they do. And they are really fabulous at that, that particular application. The other thing I would say is that we just recently started offering Spanish. On our hotline, we have a Spanish hotline operator, now who's available, that's also a grant funded position. So we're hoping that that will make us much more available to Latinx folks and farm workers, so that they can get access to the same resources that other folks are in, we're now in the midst of trans transitioning that farm resource network that online clearinghouse to Spanish as well. So we're very excited about that.
Josh Dallin 22:47
I think that that's amazing. And what a great resource that you guys are and provide. And thank you for, for giving us a better understanding of what this really is. It's certainly something that sounds like a lot of people have taken advantage of, but kind of a really cool kept secret that we hope to advertise a lot more about and get get more people involved in in taking advantage of your resources. So we certainly appreciate you, Lori for taking the time to, to answer our questions and to and to share that story. And we just wish you the absolute best as you continue along in this in this incredible journey.
Lori Mercer 23:31
Thank you. Yeah, and I guess I just finished up by just saying to anybody listening that, you know, there's a lot of folks who have insight into the struggles you're facing, you're not alone. So whether it's a family member, a friend, it's a clergy member, health care provider or us. Just know, there's lot of folks who are deeply, deeply invested in you and care about you and just encouraging you to reach out however you feel most comfortable to do. So
Josh Dallin 24:00
Some absolutely perfect words from Lori, thank you so very much. This has been episode number 11 of our ag wellness podcast, signing off for Jake Hadfield and myself. I'm Josh Dallin. We look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Ag wellness podcast. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcast, visit our website at farm stress.us and connect with us on social media at AG wellness Utah. If you are experiencing stress, mental health concerns or suicidal
thoughts, or if you know someone who is please contact these resources as always, if it is an emergency dial 911 crisis lines that are available.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Ag Wellness podcast. Please subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts, visit our website at farmtress.us, and connect with us on social media at Ag Wellness Utah. If you are experiencing stress, mental health concerns, or suicidal thoughts, or if you know someone who is, please contact these resources. As always, if it is an emergency, dial 911.
Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255 Crisis Text Line Text HOME to 741741
Crisis Response Network 1-800-203-CARE (2273)
SafeUT 833-372-3388 or download their app to use the chat feature
If you need help finding a mental health provider, here are some ways to get started:
Contact the person’s health insurance provider and ask about mental health professionals that are within the network.
Psychology Today Service Finder: On this website, you can search for therapists, psychiatrists, treatment centers and support groups in your area. www.psychologytoday.com/us
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
• Here, you can find general information about mental health services in your area.
• findtreatment.samhsa.gov/
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)
• At this website, you can find health centers that offer more affordable options for people that do not have health insurance.
• https://findahealthcenter.hrsa.gov/
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• This website can help if you have questions about insurance coverage for mental health.
• https://www.hhs.gov/programs/topic-sites/mental-health-parity/mental-health-and-addiction-insurance-help/index.html
Thanks for listening to the Ag Wellness podcast – be well!