How Climate Change Is Impacting Farmer Mental Health

Guilt. Anguish. Hopelessness. Panic. These are just a few of the thoughts running through farmers’ heads as they’ve dealt with catastrophic weather events over the past few years. 

Through a series of interviews with 36 Ontario farmers, Rochelle Thompson, a PhD candidate in the University of Guelph’s Department of Population Medicine, has been able to learn about farmers’ experiences first-hand.  

“I heard about the overwhelming, all-encompassing nature of the extreme weather event crises,” Thompson says of the research. “A lot of people don’t even know what the first step is in situations like that.” 

Thompson interviewed the farmers between March 2023 and May 2024. All had experienced some sort of catastrophic event associated with climate change, including prolonged droughts, barn collapses in a natural disaster and disease outbreaks. 

“There’s a lot of uncertainty for people after events like these,” Thompson explains. “Some question how many extreme weather events they can withstand before it becomes unreasonable to keep farming.” 

Thompson asked about their experience and how it impacted their mental health, while also exploring the factors helping them find resilience in the face of disaster. 

While past farmer mental health research has relied on quantitative data, interviews like these provide a deeper understanding of what farmers are facing while out in the field. 

Thompson hopes to publish the results of her work in 2026.