Project Overview
The Western Regional Agricultural Stress Assistance Program series is a series of subcontracts from 2020 to 2025 with Washington State University to address agricultural and farmer stress across the western United States. Funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, the contract provides for a variety of mental health supports, services, and evaluating resources in rural communities that address mental health.
Western Regional Agriculture Stress Assistance Program
“In 2019/2020, Montana State University fostered a workgroup of members from 14 states in the Western region to actively discuss agriculture-related stress and the importance to meet this growing need for support. This group evolved to include WSU Skagit County Extension and Montana State University as the host institutions. Together, the group applied for a UDSA Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN) grant intended to stimulate a collaborative effort between 13 states and 4 territories in forming a network in the Western region. WRASAP was very fortunate to be funded to do work in farm stress/agricultural suicide prevention prior to the pandemic.
The project team understands that farmers and farmworkers are a vulnerable population and thus more susceptible than others to the psychosocial effects of environmental factors such as this pandemic. A 2020 poll from the American Farm Bureau showed that farmers/farmworkers are more likely than rural adults to say COVID-19 has impacted their mental health (66% vs 53%).1”
Learn more at https://farmstress.us/
Prime Funder: United States Department of Agriculture
Subcontract with Washington State University
Subcontract Principal Investigator: Ty B. Aller, PhD, LMFT
Subcontract Co-Investigators: Heather Kelley, PhD, Joana Franco, PhD, Elizabeth B. Fauth, PhD
Project Term: 2021-2025
Project Amount: $407,000
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