Mental health issues remain a strain on American farmers, including those in Delaware.

Nearly half of rural adults in the U.S. say they’re experiencing more mental health challenges than they were a year ago, according to a study by Morning Consult and the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Stats on farmer mental health and suicide are largely based on white, middle-aged male farmers in the Midwest, said Scott Marlow, a senior advisor in the USDA’s Farm Service Agency.

Marlow joined a panel at this week’s BIPOC Farmers Conference at Delaware State University, which is the first of its kind on DSU’s campus. The conference is a collaboration between the First State African American Farmers’ Association, Delaware State University College of Agriculture, Science and Technology and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Marlow said the drive toward efficiency in agriculture has been detrimental to people of color in the industry.

“There’s not a question… The tools that created the ability to industrialize large-scale, the move towards uniformity, all those things of industrialization were… systematically denied to farmers of color.”

Marlow said conditions in the chicken industry are especially brutal.

Broiler or chicken production accounts for over 75% of Delaware’s agricultural production value, according to the USDA.

Marlow said most of the suicide cases he’s worked were chicken farmers. Risk factors for mental health issues and suicide among farmers include financial distress, pesticide exposure and racism.

“Moves towards efficiency by nature drive people out of farming. Period. Land is a zero sum game. If I get bigger, you get smaller. Period.”

At the same time, Marlow said the FSA changed its focus to keep farmers farming rather than focusing on efficiency.

There used to be an average of 100 to 125 farm foreclosures annually. Now, FSA has foreclosed on 12 farms in the last four years – and none of those farms were owned by Black farmers.

Marlow is trying to turn the conversation in the agriculture world away from things like pamphlets and asking farmers how they’re doing.

“Farmer death is a function of the system as it now stands. And unless we address that system, and unless we address the drivers of that system, we will be ineffectual at the other pieces.”