Farm Stress Workshop Coming to Twin Falls This Month

Suicide rates are much higher in the ag community compared to the general population in our country. To help producers cope with stress in Idaho, a workshop is set for Twin Falls on June 26th.

Keynote speaker Darla Tyler-McSherry is helping with suicide prevention efforts. She spoke a few months ago on Montana's Peer Network YouTube page.

I used to think that suicide was this terrible, awful, tragic event, and that it happened to other people. And that changed for my family in September in 2016 when my dad, Dick Tyler, a wheat farmer from Big Sandy, took his own life on the family farm.

McSherry is the founder of an organization called Ask in Earnest, which deals with mental health challenges. Awareness is key to understanding risk factors in the ag industry. Says McSherry:

One is just not really being able to have a balance between work and life outside of work. Farmers and ranchers don't have that physical or that psychological separation from work and life outside of work. It really runs all into one and the same.

The Farm Stress Workshop at the Canyon Crest Events Center in Twin Falls, Idaho will be held on June 26th.