Tell Congress: Expand Access to Mental Health Care for Farmworkers

United States Congress

Photo: Parmiss Akbari

Many migrant women workers face workplace conditions that worsen mental health, such as harassment in the workplace, wage theft and lack of paid family leave. People who migrate for work, such as those employed in agriculture, face a variety of challenges with accessing mental health care. This includes issues such lack of health care or the practicalities of trying to find a therapist with each shift of a season.

A Morning Consult poll found that during 2021, 61% of farmers and farmworkers and 51% of rural adults reported experiencing more stress and mental health challenges compared to the prior year. The people who put food on our tables should have access to mental health care.

Join Justice for Migrant Women as we call on Congress to ensure that all people working in agriculture, including farmworkers, have access to mental health care. We ask Congress to:

  1. Fund the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN) through the reauthorization of the Farm Bill

  2. Pass the Supporting Farm Workers' Mental Health Act, or H.R. 5637/S. 2898, ensuring that authorized funds are allocated specifically to farmworkers



To: United States Congress
From: [Your Name]

Across the United States, people migrate to and live in rural communities to ensure that people in the country and the world are fed. This is hard, and absolutely essential work. Many people employed in agriculture, and particularly farmworker women, face harassment in the workplace, wage theft, lack of health insurance and myriad obstacles despite the live giving work they do.

A Morning Consult poll found that during 2021, 61% of farmers and farmworkers and 51% of rural adults reported experiencing more stress and mental health challenges compared to the prior year. A recent survey that Justice for Migrant Women conducted of migrant women, including those employed in agriculture, found that less than one third of participants had ever accessed mental healthcare.

This is why I join constituents across the United States in asking you to:
1) Fund the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN) through the reauthorization of the Farm Bill

2) Pass the Supporting Farmworker Mental Health Act, or H.R. 5637/S. 2898, ensuring that authorized funds are allocated specifically to farmworkers

The people who feed us deserve to be healthy and safe at work, and this includes their mental health.

Thank you for your leadership and attention to this issue.