{"id":783206,"date":"2026-05-09T01:40:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T01:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/783206\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T01:40:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T01:40:19","slug":"n-y-farmer-on-financial-uncertainties-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/783206\/","title":{"rendered":"N.Y. farmer on financial uncertainties, mental health"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Funding uncertainty, the controversy around the placement of solar farms and how some farmers say they need immigration reform all amount to a high amount of stress for those who make one of New York state\u2019s largest industries function, and those challenges are impacting farmers\u2019 mental health.<\/p>\n<p><b>What You Need To Know<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Without the right resources and outlets, uncertainty can lead to a crisis in the farming industry<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Current events are only making things more uncertain for farmers<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Chris Pawelski says he was thinking of taking his own life before he found Cornell\u2019s NY FarmNet<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Chris Pawelski has worked on an onion farm with his family for most of his life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI started working on the farm when I was 5 years old,\u201d Pawelski said, \u201cAnd I have a photograph of me holding up a crate of onions that was coming off the machine and then my first job was picking up the onions and putting them in the crates.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/PAWELSKI_PIC.jpeg\" alt=\"Pawelski, age five, catches onion on the family farm. (Chris Pawelski)\" class=\"hashed-image image\" img-data-alignment=\"center\" img-data-width=\"percent-hundred\" loading=\"lazy\" img-data-caption=\"Pawelski, age five, catches onion on the family farm. (Chris Pawelski)\" img-data-wrap-text=\"true\" img-data-editing=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Pawelski, age five, catches onion on the family farm. (Chris Pawelski)<\/p>\n<p>He loves the work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong, it\u2019s dirty, it\u2019s hard, it\u2019s dangerous, it\u2019s taking a toll on my body and my health at times,\u201d Pawelski said, \u201cBut damn, I love it. It\u2019s fun work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The fourth generation onion farmer is proud to continue his family\u2019s legacy, but it\u2019s a lot of pressure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t emphasize how much of a weight that is,\u201d Pawelski said.<\/p>\n<p>In 2020, that weight became unbearable. His father was diagnosed with cancer and died just six months later. He became the primary caretaker for his mother while the farm struggled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was just all at once crashing down,\u201d Pawelski said.<\/p>\n<p>It became so overwhelming that Pawelski believed there was only one way out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would think about things that were very, very dark,\u201d Pawelski said. \u201cI\u2019m on a busy highway and I think, what happens if I just, you know, slip here and as a car is coming and I get crushed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He says it\u2019s the support of his wife, therapy and a Cornell-based organization called NY FarmNet that got him through.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re one of the only organizations in farm support throughout the country where we actually deploy both a mental health component and a financial support component,\u201d said Adam Howell, the outreach director for FarmNet.<\/p>\n<p>Their service is a necessary resource.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ruralhealth.us\/getmedia\/98f1009e-5418-4c06-910c-cdbb965cdb2e\/NRHA-Policy-Brief-Increases-in-Suicide-Rates-Among-Farmers-in-Rural-America.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">National Rural Health Association<\/a>, the suicide rate among farmers is 3.5 times higher than the general population. Pawelski credits FarmNet with helping to keep him from becoming part of the statistic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose meetings helped a great deal,\u201d Pawelski said. \u201c&#8230;The empathy, but also a lot of practical suggestions and such, how to make the changes and adjustments we needed to make.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He says it\u2019s a tough industry to begin with.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can\u2019t control the price we pay for things, we can\u2019t control the weather, you know, we have so many things that make things very difficult,\u201d Pawelski said.<\/p>\n<p>Current events aren\u2019t helping.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPrices, tariffs, the markets, fuel prices right now, all of that leads to uncertainty,\u201d Howell said. \u201cAnd uncertainty in a field that is already uncertain is one of the biggest detriments to farming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pawelski is living proof that with the right resources, the job can still bring joy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not just a job,\u201d Pawelski said, \u201cIt\u2019s an existence. It\u2019s a way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If you or anyone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, call the 988 hotline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Funding uncertainty, the controversy around the placement of solar farms and how some farmers say they need immigration&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":783207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,21399,17549,9829,320397,405,403,17050,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,5981,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5284],"class_list":{"0":"post-783206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-app-human-interest","10":"tag-central-ny","11":"tag-human-interest","12":"tag-natalie-mooney","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-new-york-state","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkcity","19":"tag-ny","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-swarm","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa","28":"tag-vod"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116542075199377751","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}