Farmers And Ranchers: The Stress And Anxiety Fueled By Climate Change, And Interventions That Could Help Authors: Maud Powell maud.powell@oregonstate.edu, Mary Halbleib, David Rothwell, and Chad Reznicek

https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2025.01726 Farmers and ranchers are on the front lines of climate change, facing escalating production pressures, economic uncertainty, and profound psychological impacts. Drawing on first-person experience and research in agricultural communities, this Commentary uses narrative to illuminate how climate grief—grief experienced in response to actual or anticipated loss resulting from climate change—affects farmers and ranchers and shapes their capacity for climate adaptation. In addition to this experiential framing, the authors include an illustrative example of a team-developed intervention designed to support farmers’ and ranchers’ mental health; this example is offered not as original research but as a practice-based case to stimulate the broader policy conversation. Taken together, these perspectives underscore the need to integrate mental health support into agricultural climate resilience efforts. Although programs such as the Department of Agriculture’s Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network represent important progress, current initiatives remain fragmented and underresourced. Research on mental health interventions related to climate change in general is sparse. Increasing investment and coherent policy are essential to ensuring that climate adaptation strategies address the full spectrum of challenges that farmers and ranchers face—physical, economic, and psychological.