by Sarah Covington, a Farm Bureau member from North Carolina, works as an oncology physician assistant and is the owner of Horfield Cattle Company, which specializes in registered Scottish Highland cattle.
Over the years, I have watched the agricultural community come together in difficult times. For example, wildfires, floods, droughts, tornadoes, and hurricanes bring appropriate awareness in the news headlines, but what about the mental health crisis that is affecting those in our industry? The chronic, sometimes daily hardships that farmers and ranchers face impact our daily lives, whatever their nature: financial, family, weather, economic, regulatory, and more. Often, we must bear the hardships alone.
That’s why I’m pleased to announce that the American Agriculture Association and the Farmer Family Health Alliance recently teamed up to announce a new resource to help remind all of us in agriculture that we’re not alone: Togetherall, an electronic platform and tool developed to provide mental health awareness and support to others. For you millennials, think Twitter meets Reddit, but much better. For you older and wiser folks, think a virtual gathering of colleagues without name tags or introductions. In this column, I share my “real-time” experience using Togetherall.
Signing up was actually pretty easy. I opened the web browser on my phone, typed in fb.org/farmstateofmind, and scrolled down to the Togetherall logo. I clicked on it to go to the Togetherall website, which took me to a bright, simple home page where I clicked on the join button and filled in my information. A username was automatically generated for me. I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw the name; it was uplifting and random at the same time. “That’s off to a good start,” I thought to myself.
Next, I was asked to fill out some basic demographic information, but keep in mind that you can be as specific or vague as you like. After completing this section, I clicked on the Community button to explore my options. Honestly, I was impressed.
When I first joined, I noticed that there were many different communities: healthcare workers, parents, first responders, teachers, and of course agriculture. Within these communities, there were separate groups. For example, there was a group dedicated to uplifting and positive posts, and another group specifically for people to vent their frustrations.
Soon I found myself scrolling through the posts. Togetherall’s posts were honest, authentic and heartfelt. As I continue to browse the platform today, I empathize with members as they share their struggles and smile as other anonymous users post encouraging comments. It’s never been a question for me that farmers would support one another during difficult times, but it’s wonderful to see the farming community supporting one another in such a new way.
What a blessing it is to have a platform where we can talk anonymously with people who understand us as a farming family. Togetherall provides an outlet for hurt, frustration and anger on the hard days, and companionship and support on the good days. There are days when it feels like everything is going wrong and you just want to give up. So why not take a minute for self-care and scroll through Togetherall. Scroll through posts that make you smile, scroll through posts that make you laugh. Scroll through posts that make you feel like you are not alone. But above all, log on to Togetherall for hope and support so that the hard days don’t cling to us like a beast, but rather roll off of us like fresh hay bales rolling from the baler into the field.
