Why AgWell?
“As long as there are a few farmers out there, we’ll keep fighting for them.”
— Willie Nelson.
America’s farmers, ranchers, and agricultural workers are under an increasing amount of stress.
Agriculture has never been an easy profession. Always subject to forces beyond a farmer’s control, Mother Nature may take a season’s crop just days before harvest, or drought may force an unwanted culling of ranchers’ cattle. Commodity prices dictate profit and loss, and unexpected swings in the market can make or break a year’s worth of work and investment.
Agriculture is a sun-up to sun-down affair. There are no sick days, no snow days, no spur-of-the-moment family vacations in the summer. As many agricultural workers are self-employed or working on family farms, there are also no benefits, no leave time, and no pension plans.
Over the last few years, the always-difficult situation for farmers and ranchers has been exacerbated by an increase in extreme weather events, tariff wars, a pandemic, and now, most recently wild swings in commodity prices due to war. Yet through it all, our agricultural community is still out in the field: planting grain, running cattle, mending fences, filling silos.
They deserve our support.
We hope to provide it to them.
AgWell is a project of the Rocky Mountain Farmer’s Union funded in collaboration with grants from the Western Region Stress Assistance Program and the Colorado Trust.
Our purpose is to build a network of communities, a network of support for farmers, ranchers, agricultural workers, and their families. We want to foster well-being. We want to assist with stress management. We want to give folks the support and resources they need to be well before they reach a crisis point.
We want America’s producers to know they are never alone.
To this end, we have three goals:
- To provide space for agricultural workers and those who wish to support them to explore resources, techniques, and conversations around well-being
- To provide a library of resources for farmers, ranchers, and agricultural workers to ensure that wherever they are at, and however they are feeling, they have a network of support at their fingertips.
- To train community members in the unique stressors that America’s producers face, and give them the tools needed to provide support for agricultural workers within their own communities
We hope you’ll join us in our efforts! We have a list of our current trainings and workshops here. We’re always looking for new organizations and locations to host more, so if you have something in mind, please contact us. And you can get all the latest news on what we’re up to, as well as regular links to well-being resources by following us on our new social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Let’s work together. Let’s build support. Let’s extend a hand to these hard-working folks.
Because sometimes, we all need to be pulled up by more than just the bootstraps.
