Another farmer suicide feature, this one from the LA Times

Seema Mehta reports from Marcus, Iowa, on the suicide of farmer Troy Sand.  It's a shattering lede: 

On a mild spring day, Troy Sand took his middle son, Connor, out for lunch and to shop for a new laptop for college. Then he returned home, wrapped a single-shot shotgun in a rug, drove to his girlfriend’s house in nearby Cherokee, walked into the backyard and shot himself in the head. 

Sand was 51. His death devastated his large, close-knit family and shattered this tiny community of fewer than 1,200 people in northwestern Iowa. His death also represented a growing manifestation of despair in rural America — farmers taking their own lives. 

“When you have a suicide in your family, that person’s pain ends, but that pain gets put on everybody that’s left behind,” said Jill Vrieze, Sand’s younger sister.

Among the rural themes in this story is lack of anonymity, specifically as related to the stigma of mental health.  One data point included in the story regards the lack of mental health support in rural communities:  76 of Iowa's 99 counties have too few mental health professionals.   

Several presidential candidates passing through Iowa in recent months addressed the phenomenon of rising farmer suicides, which are sometimes framed as deaths of despair.  Here's what Bernie Sanders had to say:

For rural working-class people, life expectancy is going down. Doctors call it the diseases of despair. That means when people feel hopeless … they turn to alcohol, they turn to drugs, and increasingly in rural America, people turn to suicide.

Klobuchar and Booker also acknowledged the phenomenon; indeed, I note that Klobuchar is tweeting frequently about farm and ag issues, not surprising in light of her own midwestern roots.   

More coverage of farmer suicides on Legal Ruralism can be found here, including stories out of Australia and India. 

Cross-posted to Working Class Whites and the Law.