{"id":76848,"date":"2026-01-26T08:20:52","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T15:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=76848"},"modified":"2026-01-26T13:46:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T20:46:38","slug":"women-in-agriculture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/women-in-agriculture\/","title":{"rendered":"Women in agriculture on the road to mental wellness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Across rural landscapes, agriculture is often portrayed as a way of life rooted in resilience,\u00a0independence\u00a0and endurance. Yet\u00a0behind this narrative,\u00a0there is an\u00a0unspoken reality:\u00a0the growing mental health\u00a0pressure\u00a0faced by those who\u00a0work on\u00a0the land. For women in agriculture, this strain is compounded by unique social,\u00a0economic\u00a0and cultural pressures. Balancing physically\u00a0demanding labor with caregiving roles, financial uncertainty,\u00a0isolation\u00a0and the expectation to remain\u00a0dependable\u00a0in the face of adversity has created a silent mental health crisis among women in farming communities.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gayle\u00a0Gratop, a doctoral student in the Interdisciplinary Health Program at Northern Arizona University\u00a0and\u00a0an\u00a0assistant agent at the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, is\u00a0searching for\u00a0ways to offer support for women in agriculture where traditional systems fall short.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFarm stress is impacting farmers and ranchers across the world, resulting in the\u00a0fourth highest suicide rate in the United States\u00a0by\u00a0occupation,\u201d\u00a0Gratop\u00a0said.\u00a0\u201cMy dissertation research is focused on how farm stress is impacting women farmers and ranchers across Arizona and identifying what resources they need to support their mental health.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the Centers for Disease Control\u00a0and Prevention,\u00a0most\u00a0farmers who\u00a0die by\u00a0suicide\u00a0are\u00a0men.\u00a0However,\u00a0Gratop\u00a0said research\u00a0shows that women farmers and ranchers are more prone to anxiety and depression.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy background is in horticulture,\u00a0and one of my major programmatic areas at the Cooperative\u00a0Extension\u00a0is developing\u00a0a statewide farmer mental health program,\u201d\u00a0Gratop\u00a0said. \u201cArizona is tied with Alaska as the highest percentage of\u00a0female agriculture producers in the country.\u00a0We work\u00a0closely\u00a0with the\u00a0Arizona Department of Agriculture and the\u00a0Arizona\u00a0Farm Bureau, trying to get the word out there\u00a0to\u00a0farmers\u00a0that they\u00a0are not alone. A lot of times,\u00a0they are isolated due to the nature of their\u00a0work,\u00a0and the first step is to reduce the stigmas they might have around mental health.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With help from\u00a0a\u00a0Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE)\u00a0grant,\u00a0Gratop, who is also a local grower, will conduct community-based participatory research\u00a0focused on female agricultural producers\u00a0throughout\u00a0the state.\u00a0She developed the research\u00a0questions\u00a0collaboratively with a team of\u00a0female farmers, ranchers and\u00a0agents\u00a0at\u00a0the Cooperative Extension who have first-hand experience with the struggles they face every day.\u00a0This team\u00a0will be involved in every\u00a0stage\u00a0of the research process.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat research is out there about women shows they\u00a0often\u00a0experience what is called a triple burden,\u201d\u00a0Gratop\u00a0said. \u201cIn addition to farming, they are doing a lot of off-farm work to get insurance for their families while also taking care of all their domestic and household duties. I\u00a0conducted\u00a0a pilot study last April in Yavapai and Coconino\u00a0counties\u00a0among female producers,\u00a0and their top stressors align with\u00a0what\u2019s\u00a0in the literature.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Alder Keleman Saxena, assistant professor at the\u00a0Department of\u00a0Anthropology and principal investigator for\u00a0this\u00a0grant at NAU, said\u00a0this\u00a0research addresses an important but under-acknowledged topic for Arizona.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFarming is a stressful enterprise even under the\u00a0best of\u00a0circumstances,\u201d Keleman Saxena said. \u201cFarmers have to think about so many things\u00a0that\u00a0are not\u00a0obvious to the rest of us in the food system: when and how they will get water for planting, where they will get seed or plant starts and how much they will cost, where and how to sell their crops to get the best price, and whether or not to invest in infrastructure that could make their lives easier, but then again, might not pay off if all the other conditions don’t align.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Aside from\u00a0all these common\u00a0stressors, women also\u00a0encounter\u00a0structural barriers, land access\u00a0barriers\u00a0and\u00a0other gender\u00a0disparities.\u00a0Farming is physically intense work, and\u00a0women\u00a0often\u00a0suffer from chronic pain from\u00a0the need to prove themselves in\u00a0this\u00a0male-dominated\u00a0profession.\u00a0To recognize\u00a0women\u2019s\u00a0vital role in the food system despite all these barriers, the\u00a0United Nations\u00a0designated\u00a02026\u00a0as\u00a0the\u00a0International Year\u00a0of the\u00a0Woman Farmer.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne really important thing about the model we are using is that we are actually involving\u00a0women\u00a0farmers as part of the research team,\u201d\u00a0Gratop\u00a0said. \u201cWe are going to create outreach materials that are based on their needs. This\u00a0grant has a huge educational\u00a0component,\u00a0and the team has\u00a0identified\u00a0conferences where women in agriculture are gathering, like the\u00a0Arizona\u00a0Farm Bureau\u2019s Women\u2019s Leadership Conference, the Arizona Cowbells and the Summit for Indigenous Women in Agriculture that happens every year. We are going to design outreach materials to speak to each of those audiences and we are going to\u00a0present them\u00a0during the conferences.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another\u00a0component\u00a0Gratop believes will help address mental wellness among women growers is education on how to cope with stress. During\u00a0the\u00a0pilot study, the group not\u00a0only\u00a0identified\u00a0mental health vouchers and health insurance as tools that could help them\u00a0manage stress, but also said that classes about agribusiness management, occupational health and wellness would be beneficial.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter what scale of farming you are looking at\u2014from a backyard garden to a high-acreage irrigated farm\u2014food doesn’t produce itself without human involvement, so figuring out ways to ease these stressors and keep people in farming is really important for fostering food system resilience in this region,\u201d Keleman Saxena said.\u00a0\u201cGayle’s research should generate not just new knowledge in this regard, but actionable solutions, which might also be applicable to other places.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/a>Mariana Laas | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-5050 | mariana.laas@nau.edu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Across rural landscapes, agriculture is often portrayed as a way of life rooted in resilience,\u00a0independence\u00a0and endurance. Yet\u00a0behind this narrative,\u00a0there is an\u00a0unspoken reality:\u00a0the growing mental health\u00a0pressure\u00a0faced by those who\u00a0work on\u00a0the land. For women in agriculture, this strain is compounded by unique social,\u00a0economic\u00a0and cultural pressures. Balancing physically\u00a0demanding labor with caregiving roles, financial uncertainty,\u00a0isolation\u00a0and the expectation to remain\u00a0dependable\u00a0in…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":76849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}