The plight of the American farmer

In 2013, a team of scientists from the US, UK, and Canada published a report titled, "Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function." Their study followed several hundred farmers from India's southern state of Tamil Nadu. In this region, farmers generally receive the entirety of their income following the annual harvest in September.

The researchers gave each of the farmers an IQ test both before the harvest, when they had expended most if not all of their revenue from the previous year, and after the harvest when their resources were renewed. The results were extraordinary, revealing that the farmer’s IQ scores were significantly lower (in some cases by as many as 20 points) when they had little or no money as compared to when they received their income for the year.

Even more alarming, however, were reports from 2017 that sugar cane farmers in southern India were committing suicide at an alarming rate. In the state of Karnataka for example, approximately 1,000 farmers take their life each year. This data further illustrates the psychological toll that poverty can exact on its victims.

Now, here in the United States, we are witnessing as depressingly similar trend. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control reveals that the suicide rate among Americans who working in the farming, fishing, and forestry industries is more than five times the national average. Jennifer Fahy, and executive with Farm Aid states that in the 1980s "the farm crisis was so bad, there was a terrible outbreak of suicide and depression," adding that today, "I think its actually worse."

Poverty is a killer, in so many ways. It must be obliterated.

Tony Kiene is the Executive Writer at Community Action Partnership of Ramsey & Washington Counties His 22 years of nonprofit and entertainment experience includes service to The Minneapolis Urban League, Penumbra Theatre Company, Hallie Q. Brown Community Center, the Black United Fund of Oregon, and Pepé Music, Inc. Additional experience includes work as a Graduate Research Intern / Archivist at Stanford University’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Graduate Teaching Fellow at the University of Oregon, and Public Relations Associate at the Purdue Black Cultural Center. He holds a B.A. in sociology and African American Studies from Purdue University as well as an M.A. in American Studies from Purdue where his Master’s Essay was titled, Uptown: The Racial, Spiritual, and Political Sociology of The Minneapolis Sound. Some of Tony’s other work has been published in Nommo: The Power of the Word, Community Times, Black Theatre Network, Insight News, Black Classic Press, Collegiate Press, and Reo Deo.