Farmers' mental health and suicide statistics worldwide

Updated October 2026

If you are thinking about suicide, help is available now. Contact a crisis line or your local emergency number, or tell someone you trust. Our list of helplines and crisis lines worldwide covers many countries.

In the United States, national death records put the suicide rate among working men aged sixteen to sixty-four in farming, fishing and forestry jobs at 49.9 per 100,000 people ¹.

The figures below come from national death records, health studies and farmer surveys. Each names the people it counts and the place.

Getting help

If something on this page reflects what you are going through, you do not have to manage it alone. Our guide to finding the right therapist explains how to choose someone qualified, and the TherapyRoute directory lists therapists in many countries.

If you are in crisis or thinking about suicide, our list of helplines and crisis lines worldwide gives free services by country. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.

Suicide among farmers

In several countries, farmers die by suicide more often than other workers or the general population ^{1 3 6}; in England, the higher risk is among men in agricultural trades ². A mortality odds ratio compares the share of deaths that were suicides in one group with that share in another ⁶. If you are thinking about suicide, see our helplines and crisis lines worldwide.

Depression and anxiety in farmers

Many farmers report depression or anxiety symptoms. These figures come from questionnaires and interviews in different regions, so read each with its label ^{4 8}. An age-adjusted figure allows for differences in age between the groups compared. Psychological distress means symptoms such as worry and low mood, measured on a questionnaire.

Reaching support

In rural Victoria, Australia, farming-related suicide deaths were less likely than other rural suicide deaths to follow a diagnosis or earlier mental health support ⁵. If you are thinking about suicide, see our helplines and crisis lines worldwide. Support is available, and talking to a doctor, a counsellor or someone you trust is a good first step.

• Among farming-related suicide deaths in rural Victoria, Australia, 39.8% of the people had received mental health support more than six weeks before, compared with 50.0% of other rural suicide deaths. (coroner records, 2009-2015 data) ⁵

How to read these figures

Suicide figures come from death records and compare farmers with other workers or the general population; most rows name their comparison.

Several mental health figures come from one region or from farmers who chose to answer a survey, and each row says so.

Questionnaire screens point to a probable condition, not a diagnosis.

Many therapists offer sessions by phone or video, so distance need not stop you getting support. Our guide on finding the right therapist explains how to choose someone qualified.

Cite this page: TherapyRoute. Farmers' mental health and suicide statistics worldwide. https://www.therapyroute.com/article/farmers-mental-health-statistics-worldwide-by-therapyroute. Last updated 26 October 2026.

References

1. [1] Suicide Rates by Industry and Occupation - National Vital Statistics System, United States, 2021. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report (Sussell A et al.), 2023 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
2. [2] Suicide by occupation, England: 2011 to 2015. Office for National Statistics, 2017 ons.gov.uk.
3. [3] Suicide Among Farmers in France: Occupational Factors and Recent Trends. Journal of agromedicine (Bossard C et al.), 2016 europepmc.org.
4. [4] Stress, anxiety, depression, and resilience in Canadian farmers. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology (Jones-Bitton A et al.), 2020 europepmc.org.
5. [5] Suicide in Rural Australia: Are Farming-Related Suicides Different? International journal of environmental research and public health (Kennedy A et al.), 2020 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
6. [6] Suicide mortality among agricultural workers in a region with intensive tobacco farming and use of pesticides in Brazil. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine (Krawczyk N et al.), 2014 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
7. [7] Spatiotemporal dynamics and policy impact on farmer suicides in Maharashtra, India. Scientific reports (Anjali et al.), 2025 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
8. [8] Association of Selenium Intake and Development of Depression in Brazilian Farmers. Frontiers in nutrition (Ferreira de Almeida TL et al.), 2021 europepmc.org.
9. [9] Pesticide exposure and depression among agricultural workers in France. American journal of epidemiology (Weisskopf MG et al.), 2013 europepmc.org.
10. [10] Anxiety and Depression Symptoms Among Farmers: The HUNT Study, Norway. Journal of agromedicine (Torske MO et al.), 2016 europepmc.org.
11. [11] Poor mental health of livestock farmers in Africa: a mixed methods case study from Ghana. BMC public health (Nuvey FS et al.), 2020 europepmc.org.
12. [12] Effect of subjective economic status on psychological distress among farmers and non-farmers of rural China. The Australian journal of rural health (Feng D et al.), 2015 europepmc.org.
13. [13] Impacts of COVID-19 on Agricultural Production Branches: An Investigation of Anxiety Disorders among Farmers. Sustainability, MDPI (Cevher et al.), 2021 mdpi.com.