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Producer Stress and Burnout
127 Plays2 years ago
In this episode of Hort Culture, we talk about a serious issue that can affects producers and market gardeners: stress and burnout. Producer burnout is the feeling of exhaustion, frustration and lack of motivation that comes from trying to keep up with the demands of growing, harvesting and selling your horticulture products. Whether you are a hobbyist or a professional, producer burnout can take a toll on your mental and physical health, as well as your relationships and your passion for plants. Join us as we talk about this important topic.
Farm Stress and Rural Mental Health
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu
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Transcript
Introduction to Hort Culture Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Hort Culture, where a group of extension professionals and plant people talk about the business, production, and joy of planting seeds and helping them grow. Join us as we explore the culture of horticulture.
Understanding Farmer Burnout
00:00:17
Speaker
Hey everybody, it is mid August, it doesn't matter, it's August in general. Which is the perfect segue into what we're talking about today, which is a farmer burnout, farmer burnout, gardener burnout.
00:00:33
Speaker
plant-growing burnout in general. And August is just always, in my opinion, the most timely time to start talking about farmer burnout or outside burnout. I don't even know. What makes it timely?
00:00:52
Speaker
Because if you know a farmer or a market gardener or someone who's invested a lot of time and energy into their outside activities, you may notice they're all kind of saying the same thing. And it's something along the lines of, I'm real tired whenever you speak to them. Is this year going to start wrapping up? Is it cold yet?
00:01:21
Speaker
I laugh to disguise the bags underneath my eyes, but I think that's pretty universal, at least with a lot of the farmers that I talk to, no matter what they seem to grow, what is your all's experience with this time of year? Here in Kentucky, we have seasonality. We have the four seasons. I often wonder,
00:01:42
Speaker
about those locations like far south that may not have the seasonality that we do as far as weather, so they don't have the same limitations on production. So what do they do produce mostly year round? I mean, here we have, we've, we've already kicked it off by saying, thank goodness, the changing of the seasons brings a change in, you know, attitudes.
00:02:03
Speaker
those people that can't get that. How do they find relief?
The Irony of Extended Growing Seasons
00:02:07
Speaker
That reminds me, I mean, as a former farm worker of the Deep South, I remember one of the things when I moved up here and I saw this focus on season extension, I was like, no, don't do it.
00:02:19
Speaker
That's what happens to us down there. And why would anyone extend their season any longer? Someone was joking and said, you guys are putting in all of these hot tunnels. You know that that means you have to work longer into the winter, right? That's why, I mean, you're always working doing things, but longer production cycles, which is good, you know, in a way, but in another way, maybe a break is not so bad. Do we always have to be doing something?
00:02:44
Speaker
Well, I mean more the serious kind of answer of how they deal with that and the like kind of Florida and Georgia is I know a lot of people kind of stage down their production in the summertime and things are kind of more focused on the shoulder season. Yeah, I was recently in Charleston and it was hot. Famously hot. Famously hot and humid, you know,
00:03:09
Speaker
Their, their player scores for humidity was 99 heat 98 across the board. No, thanks. And, uh, this was toward the end of July and we got there and most of the farms didn't have anything in the field because they, they shoot to have everything out by July, the end of July, which is a very foreign concept to us.
00:03:32
Speaker
Yeah, it makes me wonder with the seasonality, there's a sense of we got to cram as much as we can between March and September and so we're going to go, go, go, go, go and that maybe even makes it a little bit worse because I can rest in the winter. Humans generally do better with regular rest as opposed to biannual rest.
00:03:54
Speaker
Occasional rest every now and then. Yeah.
Stress vs. Burnout: Key Differences
00:03:58
Speaker
An ongoing basis. I feel that in my soul. That kind of, you know, you've only got a limited season, so you have to crank out a lot more to kind of fill that void that the winner brings and, you know, income or whatever it is that's, cause you usually, I mean, I know a lot of our vegetable, vegetable producers can be, you know, harvesting kale and spinach and stuff like that.
00:04:21
Speaker
Probably 10 months out of the year, maybe more if they're doing a little bit of heating, so there may be less pressure in the summer months because they're still making some income, but I think for a lot of growers,
00:04:33
Speaker
who are not doing winter that they're still producing in winter, but they're not maybe harvesting and bringing an income in the winter. Um, there's a big push to really go, go, go, because you've got to fill that. That void, right? You have to make enough money and these few amount of months to last you 12 months. And I think that that's can be, can be tough. Yeah. And so that's one of the, one of the components of the season extension and value added and other off season income streams.
00:05:02
Speaker
it's attractive. However, you know, as Josh said, my in my experience, it's not let's reduce the my experience with a lot of people who add season extension is they don't really know or think or maybe can't afford or whatever to reduce their intensity during the main growing season. They just can try to try to keep that going, you know.
00:05:24
Speaker
we're going to do 10 miles today instead of five. Well, I'm going to run my five mile pace for 10 miles and see how it goes. And then many of them do end up, you know, you'll see people that focus on shoulder seasons or they'll eventually move away from that. I think, you know, one thing I just wanted to, you know, we talk about stress, stress is a concept and stress is kind of always there in everyone's lives or opportunities for it, but burnout itself. So I just checked it out with the
00:05:48
Speaker
the American Psychology Association's Dictionary of Psychology, so they refer to burnout and they define it as a physical, emotional, or mental exhaustion accompanied by decreased motivation, lowered performance, and negative attitudes toward oneself and others. And I think one of the components of burnout that sometimes gets overlooked or doesn't really get talked about is that there is a decrease in performance too.
00:06:16
Speaker
And so just saying, I'm just going to deal with it. I'm going to tough it out. I'm going to whatever. Well, you're going to be operating with one or maybe both of your arms tied behind your back the longer you push it. And so that's just a, I don't know, just a little bit of a framing of the difference between occasional stress and that burnout is like this place you arrived at.
00:06:35
Speaker
That's usually one of the first things I want to know, Brett, when I'm, you know, we're a very blessed, you know, an extension to a lot of times when we're working with people out in communities is try to get a sense of whether this is an episodic.
00:06:50
Speaker
instance of stress or is it something because of operational setups or guidelines or the way people do things is it something that's going to be a continuous stress continuous stressor and that's kind of it if it's something that's just continuous because the way you're set up like for instance you don't have enough labor and you just simply have too much to do and not enough hours to do it that's going to be continuous until you address that
00:07:16
Speaker
and that really worries me if it's just a rain storm that gets sand all over your lettuce or you know your haybell or breaks down that's episodic you know that those things are gonna happen but if it's something that's just gonna be there in the background and just wear you down that that's one of the first things i try to understand when i'm listening to people and hearing people is,
00:07:38
Speaker
Well, what's the nature of the stress? And it just makes me wonder and it makes me, it made me think about that when you mentioned what burnout really is and it seems like just this, you get to this point.
Sharing Experiences to Alleviate Burnout
00:07:50
Speaker
Yeah. See, I feel like sand on your lettuce could be like a really folksy term for like, you know, just something bad that happens, but it's not the end. That's a Florida phrase. We use that all the time. Sand on my lettuce. I feel like it's like a burn for somebody. Man, you're worse than sand on my lettuce. Unfortunately, most of the populace is not going to get that reference. They're going to be like, what? How do we expand that? Like, don't let a little sand on your lettuce ruin the whole salad or something. Ruin the whole taco.
00:08:23
Speaker
I was thinking about that, Brad. I was glad somebody vocalized that. I'm glad somebody put that to song. Thank you. And a classic song at that, very low play. I think that, I don't know, my thought process when we were discussing, you know, topics and this one came up was that I always feel better when I talk to other
00:08:50
Speaker
farmers or growers or someone who's in a similar situation as me and there's just a little bit of camaraderie there about that. So I think my goal is that you listening will feel a little bit like you're not alone out there and just the
00:09:09
Speaker
the stress, the burnout, just kind of that feeling of being overwhelmed this time of year.
August: A Time for Reflection and Transition
00:09:16
Speaker
I always try and think of August as like almost a transitional period. I mean, we're starting to lose daylight. Our nights, we're going to have plenty of hot days still, but usually our nights, we start getting a little bit cooler nights.
00:09:31
Speaker
And you know, if you've got really bad weed problems, they're probably at their peak, but it's sort of the time to transition into something else. So whether that's your fall garden, your fall crops, um, it's almost for me and the way I do things. And I'll think a lot of people do are.
00:09:48
Speaker
It's almost, it's not quite a clean blank slate. Like you get in this, you know, the middle of winter when you're starting out and you're wanting to start your seeds, but it's second best. It's sort of like the chalkboard that you've erased slightly and you still have all the, yeah, you still have all the like white dust on it, but like you don't necessarily see what was written. That's kind of how I think about August and giving myself a little bit of time to.
00:10:12
Speaker
accept what has not gone well this year and change it, make some notes to myself about what didn't go right in that way. I don't necessarily try and solve the problem.
00:10:25
Speaker
Sometimes you can in the moment, but sometimes you just need to write down that this bed had horrible weed problems and I don't know why, but write it down and then in January, look at it again and say, okay, I had this problem. Now, how do I fix it? Once you've had a little bit of time, maybe you get through the holidays, you got some good, you know, couple extra pounds worth of delicious food on you and you're just feeling better.
The Role of Journaling in Stress Management
00:10:50
Speaker
And then notoriously low stress holidays. Yeah. I think farmers are next year people. That's what you're describing Alexis. Yeah. And Colin Hey put it to words. It's a song like, I think it's actually called next year people, but it's a song about farmers being eternal optimist. No matter what's going on this year, they have optimism for the future. They're next year people. Farmers are next year people. Yeah. It's something that Alexis brought up there about, you know, writing things down the journaling aspect of it.
00:11:19
Speaker
That, for me, touches on something that has helped me a lot in time fast, even not necessarily connected to farming directly. But I find that when I write things down, whether it's journaling about how something went and accepting it, or when it comes to things
00:11:40
Speaker
that I need to do later or to touch on and reflect on later, that writing things down lets me kind of let it go. Like I no longer have to kind of keep it somewhere stuck in my memory bothering me. I can just let it go and know that later I will look at this and, you know, deal with it or accomplish it. But that, you know, writing things down, that sort of thing is kind of critical or has been crucial for me in managing stress.
00:12:07
Speaker
I've worked with producers and it's hit them a different way journaling has, and it was unexpected to me when they told, and this is more than one instance, but it was a form of journaling, but they began writing things down, however they called it. I think they wanted to be, you know, they were like, we're keeping a log. But to me, I was like, they're journaling.
00:12:27
Speaker
But what it's made them do is take stock of their time and what they spent their time on. And they just realized some time inefficiencies or some over some choke points that was causing them a tremendous amount of stress. I guess long story made short was that journaling or keeping a log helped them kind of compartmentalize where there were issues and realize a few things about their
00:12:53
Speaker
Balance of things and their operation and with their family and it all came about because of that journal that that writing things down and Reflecting on that and it was a very powerful process for a few producers that I've worked with and they were just basically journaling and
00:13:11
Speaker
And they didn't expect that. And I mean, I was like, wow, that's, you know, it must be a great way to realize some things when you take stock of it like that. It gives you that kind of time break, which is another sort of way to mitigate stress and burnout is to kind of disconnect from what you're doing.
00:13:30
Speaker
And take a break. It disconnects a whole other thing with farming, isn't it? I mean, that's a big thing. What are boundaries? What are those? Good word, Alexis. I like it. Yeah. I hear that a lot. That disconnect. Well, how do you do that if you're on a, let's say a family production or family farm operation is
00:13:52
Speaker
I have heard that in me being in this situation in the past myself, it's hard to find that disconnect and get away from the stress because the stress lives with you and it's part of you in a lot of cases.
00:14:05
Speaker
I think something I've seen is that people will actually just schedule it, and that may not be a perfect fix, but somebody will have a phone-free Sunday or Saturday afternoon or whatever it may be, or screen-free that they're not going to be thinking about that and stressing about that.
00:14:24
Speaker
But I think something too that I've been trying to just wrap my head around more generally and work it into my life more, I guess, is that people are very different. People have very different ways of handling things. So for some people, journaling
00:14:42
Speaker
would be a great thing. It would be very helpful for them. Some people, the journaling would be a way of laying out all the things that they're stressed at about, and it would just make them more stressed to see it all laid out. Or maybe they're already keeping all these records and they have everything lined out. And I think it could be, I think those are great tips for some people, but if that doesn't fit you, it could be that you need to go and go out in the woods and just scream at the top of your lungs and just kind of let it out.
The Necessity of Breaks and Physical Disconnection
00:15:11
Speaker
Or, uh, Josh, have you ever, uh, you ever, you ever cried in the field while you were in the middle of the time? That's one of the nice things about heat is like, it looks like sweat. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's, that's a thing too, is that I think sometimes
00:15:28
Speaker
Because ourselves as much issue by kind of trying to hold everything together and not letting it out or letting yourself feel it or letting yourself let you know, don't you don't come across that you have everything together, you know, we talked about the the Instagram pressures of
00:15:45
Speaker
Um, the perfect, the perfect, the highlight reel, perfect polished. Everything's great. All the weeds and all the problems are just out of frame. I think sometimes people will do that, especially in the drag marketing world or in the, you know, if you have to be on and interacting with people. So that, I mean, that's another, another aspect of it. I think is that fine. You got to figure out something that's going to work best for you to you leave it behind on the page, maybe
00:16:12
Speaker
somebody else leaves it behind with eye sweat in the field. Somebody else leaves it alone in the echoing through the trees that they go and do or whatever the thing may be. I have worked with multiple people that their strategy for kind of disconnecting and establishing boundaries had to involve them getting so geographically distant from the farm that they couldn't possibly be in a position to help anything.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah. And then that was not necessarily from their workers reaching out to them, but that was like the only way to get them to like go away and not think about vacation. Yeah. And it's a new concept to some folks that, you know, have farmed actually to take a vacation. But the critical word there you said is vacation away or a break away. Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:05
Speaker
Yeah, where they can't just, you know, look out the window and re invite all the stress right back in. And that's that boundary that, uh, one of the greatest things about it, uh, that I remember is, you know, living and working there with family and long days and doing things together and always being together. And that's always some of them. And sometimes that's some of the most challenging things, especially when.
00:17:27
Speaker
You know, you're working with all these biological systems and your, you know, weather goes wrong and you're working not only with biological systems, but mechanical systems that can sometimes be dangerous. And, you know, you combine all these unknowns and that's its own stressor. And with, um, you know, 104 degree August day, Alexis, with family out in a field with everybody sweating from their eyes, uh, it can be challenging. It can be trying and, uh,
00:17:54
Speaker
And I remember mom one time just telling dad, you know, it's okay not to be okay.
Setting Goals for Time Off
00:18:00
Speaker
We had one of those moments where everybody was stressed and, you know, it was going to rain. The hay was on the ground and, you know, tobacco, which, you know, was a very important cash crop for us at the time. You know, just everything was literally a perfect storm, figuratively and literally. But, you know, I remember that was a turning point for us. She was like, it's okay not to be okay sometimes.
00:18:26
Speaker
One of my goals for 2023 from a farming perspective was that I gave myself time off every week. Weird. I'm not great at it. Sunday is not fun day, Alexis.
00:18:44
Speaker
But it was, even when I don't succeed at that goal, when I do succeed, number one, I hit a goal. And I love, that gives my brain some serotonin. But also, it's like I've given myself permission because I did set that goal ahead of time. And I've given myself a little permission. So that was one of my things where I give myself, I wanted to give myself an entire day. I've gone down to half a day. So,
00:19:14
Speaker
For those of you who are struggling with that, give yourself permission to refill your cup a little bit because you can't pour from an empty one. But I have a friend who she always puts things in perspective. She was a nurse in an ICU unit with, well, she was with babies in ICU. And she now farms full-time.
00:19:40
Speaker
and she said at some point she just says you know what it's just flowers and as someone who and you know that's I mean her and her husband both are full-time farmers like that if they don't sell these flowers that's that's their only income
00:19:56
Speaker
but coming from a place where she was literally dealing with infants that could potentially be dying around her. And she just kind of said, it's only flowers or, okay, so it's only vegetables. And even if you are a full-time farmer and it's only, how bad can it actually be? And I kind of think about that when I'm outside and I'm like, the rain's coming and I have a choice of saying,
00:20:22
Speaker
I can either harvest this crop or I can take the time off that I need. And so I kind of go through a little checklist in my mind of like, if I don't harvest this crop and the rain's coming or whatever's going to happen, is it going to get ruined? You know, is it completely destroyed? So, you know, yes or no, it's like a little flow chart in my brain and
00:20:44
Speaker
And then sometimes it just comes down to, yeah, it might be ruined. Yeah, I might lose some money, but what's the opportunity cost of me not having that time off? Will I feel better if I go inside and just fold some laundry or just sit there and stare at something? Take a nap.
00:21:01
Speaker
Folding a laundry doesn't sound like taking a break for me. I'm going to go on record by saying that. Well, I like sit there and just watch TV and fold laundry and make a flower bed. I was so proud of you. You actually did some flowers for yourself. Listen, listen. All right. It's really hard for me to just sit and do nothing.
Self-Care Through Physical Labor
00:21:22
Speaker
Um, I have to feel like I'm accomplishing something. That's why I started crocheting. Remember my temperature blanket? Cause I'm like feeling like I'm accomplishing something. So bringing your temperature down. Yeah.
00:21:33
Speaker
This past weekend, I gave myself permission to give myself something that wasn't on Amazon. Just do something for myself. What did I do? But I built this huge garden bed and laid bricks. Physically, it's very demanding. I was all day driving the tractor, jumping stuff. It was a mess, but it brought me so much
00:21:58
Speaker
Joy and now i get to just look at my window with my coffee or sit outside and see something i did for myself that's no longer on my to-do list that will bring me joy for a long time so you know if you're not that so i hate i kind of hate self that self-love thing because there's this
00:22:16
Speaker
This idea that it has to be like, oh, you're, you're doing yoga or, I mean, stretch, take care of your body, that kind of stuff. But that's not who I am. I'm going to meditate by digging out some weeds or moving some compost around and it's okay to be a little bit violent as part of your meditation. Okay.
00:22:35
Speaker
So take care of your body, but if your version of have stress relief and combating burnout is more, more physical labor, like that's okay. I think, I don't know. That's my opinion. I think in general too.
00:22:51
Speaker
grasping around it. Am I doing burnout prevention correctly? Am I doing self care? Good approach. And it could be that someday, you know, maybe someday you realize or you feel that meditation has become the thing that you want to do. And maybe right now you feel that going out and doing something that's a little bit different and is not so, you know, mental because it could very well be that you're not
00:23:18
Speaker
you're not as physically tired as you are mentally tired. And so you are taking a break from the mental portion of the business. But you enjoy being active. And so you want to do this thing that's this other thing. Yeah, I think self-care could take all sorts of forms. And I think it's important that we check in with ourselves to see, am I just finding a way to continue being productive while saying it's self-care? Or,
00:23:47
Speaker
Am I really an active person who loves doing that and this really does feel like a break and I do feel recharged or I do feel rested or and you know, I'm getting what I need right sometimes. Sometimes when I feel down it's because I'm sad sometimes it's because I haven't eaten sometimes it's because I need to drink some water sometimes it's because I haven't seen you three in a while and so there's different sometimes there's different answers to a similar looking problem and
00:24:15
Speaker
Yeah, in general, I think, yeah, if you want to do some build a garden bed, great. If you, if you would like for me and Josh to do a pro seminar on how to do nothing, we're advanced in our field. Listen, I've got the reference sheet. I got some expertise that goes back the week of Christmas. So what an extension where we're off kind of that week between Christmas and
00:24:39
Speaker
New Year's for those of you who don't know like don't call us we're not gonna answer but it's like the only time we won't answer I listen I make myself this huge charcuterie board and I I veg I don't do anything I just sit on the couch.
00:24:55
Speaker
for at least an entire day. It used to be that I would clean my house the day before, and then I would do that, but now I hired a house cleaner. So she comes the day before. Tyler doesn't care, Alexis. No, Tyler still has to go to work. So he goes to work. I make a huge, right? Huge charcuterie board. Do you call it veggie with meat and cheese? No, I call it girl dinner. I see. Have you guys heard about girl dinner?
Managing Workload with Scheduling
00:25:20
Speaker
Yeah, I've seen the phenomenon.
00:25:22
Speaker
You know I've heard a girl dinner. I eat dinner all the time. Girl dinner is my dinner. I live for girl dinner. My horoscope. I saw a reel of girl dinner by horoscope. Oh yeah. Mine was drip coffee in a blunt. So it was my world. I was like, I mean. You're the same astrological cycle. Annie's, my wife's was vaping in your favorite flavor of chip.
00:25:51
Speaker
That's quite an amalgam. Yeah. Whatever it takes folks. I was hoping you were going to say you took that whole week and just stayed on the charcuterie board. Well, they is okay. Yeah. Well, I'm still covering and uncovering high tunnels and low tunnels stuff at that point. So, but oh, I have a, I have a few tips that I've written down and I don't mean to dominate this conversation, but.
00:26:18
Speaker
As someone whose goal was to try and set some more boundaries, live on my farm. I work full time.
00:26:30
Speaker
I've farmed pretty hard. A couple things that I've done, set away messages for whatever time you take, whether it's Wednesday afternoon, Sunday morning, whatever that time is, especially for those of us in retail sales, I think we get a lot of social media messages, email messages.
00:26:53
Speaker
Wholesale as well, but there's just a lot going on. So I always felt guilty about not not responding of just two people. And it also affects the algorithm, unfortunately, on if you're not responding very quickly to people.
00:27:10
Speaker
And as you post things, people don't see them. So anyway, so what you can do is go in and set away messages. And so mine just says something simple like, thanks for contacting us. We're off duty right now. We'll get back to you tomorrow or whatever timeline that is that you want to set. And I just set for every Sunday, all day or whatever those timeline is.
00:27:34
Speaker
And number one, people, I think people appreciate that. And I think, I think it makes sure people know that you got their message, but also that it pleases the algorithm that I hate that I have to say that, but facts are the facts. We are all slaves. And I think it's important that your customers know that you know that you take some time to yourself and that it's for some reason, I don't know. It just seems like a good.
00:28:02
Speaker
conversation to have with them without you actually having a conversation and like sometimes I'm out in the field and it's a quick question because it's just like a friend who said she liked to post and you know I can message back that I saw it or you know thanks but there's a lot of relief there that I don't have to pick my phone up and do something or get on the computer and so highly recommend doing that. The other one that I've done I need to do is
00:28:29
Speaker
If it's bothering you, if it's causing you stress to see out in the field, I'm using like, if your crop has failed, if the weeds have taken over, whatever
Dealing with Crop Failures
00:28:39
Speaker
it is. And every time you look at it, you cringe and it follows you around because I'm that person who like wakes up in the middle of the night thinking of the bed that's overrun with crab grass right now. Chop it down. Just chop it down. Put a cover crop down. And because once it's gone and you're not constantly looking at what you may consider a failure.
00:28:58
Speaker
It's not staring, your failures aren't staring you in the face anymore. And you're at least doing something productive, like growing a cover crop. Huh? Bury your dead deep. Yes. Over top of it and heat that baby up, you know? Okay. That's one step more, but yeah.
00:29:15
Speaker
So I think that that's something that I've been encouraging myself to do is if it's really that bad, sometimes it's easier to just get rid of it so that you can prep it for the next bed. So what, that you didn't get it harvested. The line is to destroy your shame beyond the power of memory to recall its existence.
00:29:36
Speaker
Why do you all put things that I say in such terms that are very true and actual? Not perspective terms, yeah. I just wanted to reflect your intensity. Yeah. Everyone knows by now the intensity. How to get away from the stressors, that's all I heard in some way. Get away from them. I do just want to keep emphasizing again, so Alexis is an amazing dynamo of a person with
00:30:04
Speaker
more energy in one week than I have had in my entire life, I think.
Avoiding Comparison with Other Farmers
00:30:09
Speaker
If you've been taking a full day off and you're like, holy moly, I need to get on the Lexus's level, that's not what we're getting at here. No. Please don't love God. In some ways, you are further down the path than she is in terms of taking care of yourself and all those kinds of things.
00:30:24
Speaker
So she's just sharing her experience, none of the exact, like when I talk about examples of prices and how much money you can make off of this or that as just an example, how raising your prices can affect your bottom line, I always say, don't use this exact price, take the principles of what's being said. The same thing here, you know, it's not, it's just the principles. I just know we have a lot, there's a lot of folks who are drawn to this type of work who are,
00:30:52
Speaker
so talented, but also often so insecure. And they're, yeah, look for the wisdom. If it's feeling making you feel stressed out, maybe just shut this down and go do something else. Yeah, no, but hopefully you're feeling supported. And no, no, it's nothing that you're doing. You're just being the amazing person that you are. I'm just aware of
00:31:12
Speaker
how things can be received sometimes and how I've been received in my life when I do a lot of different stuff. And sometimes people will end up saying, oh, it just makes me feel bad that you do all this stuff and I don't do this stuff. And it's like, well, I also take naps.
00:31:30
Speaker
Right. All kinds of other things. I've watched hours of YouTube about the dumbest things you can imagine. I've seen most of the Fast and the Furious movies for at least the second or third time recently. Within the last three days. That's a good example. Yeah.
00:31:47
Speaker
So, I mean, you know, it's okay. It's cool to chill some and to, yeah, but we're mainly saying something just to take care of yourself. And here's some tips from someone who's really working on that. And I'm really proud of you, Alexis, for the work that you have done, because I know it doesn't come easy to you to do that. Oh, no, it's a struggle. It's such a struggle. Ray, you said something earlier that I would like for you to re-say,
00:32:13
Speaker
something your dad told you one time about farming.
Farming as Passion and Identity
00:32:16
Speaker
Do you remember what you said? The sand and the lettuce. Yeah, which instance? Yeah, that was always saying something. I didn't always listen. Farming, before we had started, farming is a crime of passion. Passion, yeah. And I was like, that hit me. Yeah. I guess he was getting at that, we wrap ourselves up in that sometimes it's not just a job, it's a way of life.
00:32:41
Speaker
And, uh, sometimes our identities get wrapped up into work and that becomes a kind of a tangled web. And I think that's what he was getting at. And that's a tough position to be in because what does that mean? That if you start a small business farming operation, you know, most small businesses, seven out of 10 historically of any kind of small business fell within five years.
00:33:07
Speaker
And farming falls right along that. But what does that mean when your identity is tied to the operation? I think that that hits a little harder. It can. Because if you're doing something that you love, and if you can't do something that you love and make a productive go at it,
00:33:27
Speaker
Uh, and that's where all the, all the issues come from, I think. And I think that's just magnified from the people that I've worked with. And even in our own family, when we were all farming, uh, together, uh, that's magnified when it's multi-generational and you know, you have this feeling that you have people depending on you and you, you cannot fail. But sometimes we just have to realize like any job, but especially in farming and production, there's just certain factors that are beyond your control.
00:33:58
Speaker
And that's really hard to step back and ask the question, why? Dad was always also very good at, besides just throwing out profound tidbits that none of us really understood at the time. We were talking about him 30 years later, but he always asked that, you know, he would just abbreviate like a heated conversation with, well, why? Why are we doing this? If he, you know,
00:34:20
Speaker
And it was tough. Sometimes you have to ask that. And it's hard to get the why. It really is. Why are you doing this if it's causing you stress? And at some point, we all got off the farm. A big factor was we had a big family meeting. My older brother and I, he's one year older, we both went away to college. In this case, we both went to Berea at the same time, first in our family to ever go to college. But it was a big deal for our family. And that took a large chunk of the farm labor away.
00:34:49
Speaker
And so we decided to get off the farm at that time, but we had all of these discussions that we've had today, maybe minus the aliens and Earl Grey tea. I don't know, but we, we had all these discussions in one family sitting when we made that decision. Uh, and it's tough in it because our identities were kind of wrapped up in what we were doing. It was tough situation. Hmm. Yeah. Something just to supplement a little bit of that, um, about the,
00:35:16
Speaker
the note about survival rates of businesses and farming enterprises.
Balancing Growth and Success
00:35:23
Speaker
There was this work that was done by AMS, USDA, Ag Marketing Service. It's been a little over 10 years ago now, so I'm sure maybe there's been stuff since. But one of the things that stuck with me, it was focused on kind of this segment that we tend to work with. So smaller farms, local food, general kind of vibe.
00:35:44
Speaker
And they found generally a correlation between survivability beyond the first five years and rate of growth. And specifically, the more slowly and intentionally the farm and the enterprise grew, the more likely it was to be successful in this type of field. And I thought that was a really interesting
00:36:07
Speaker
concept. I'm not suggesting that everyone, it was because they grew too big and got burnt out and collapsed. I think that there's aspects of taking on debt and assumptions about market growth and limitations of personnel and expanding and management and all these other things. But I do think there's a little bit of, if you're feeling the pressure to double production and double sales a year after year after year,
00:36:35
Speaker
There's both a personal limit to that. And there's also maybe some other kind of external data about business survivability there on what sustainability is within these types of farms. And of course there's the same thing too. If you completely stay still, stand still and you aren't changing or you're not growing and all that kind of stuff, then that has its own challenges too. But I think that it's a really delicate balancing act.
00:37:00
Speaker
I like to think of that from year to year of what drains you and then what fills you. How do you get rid of things that maybe drain you if picking- Why are you looking at me? Tomatoes drains me.
00:37:18
Speaker
Mosquitoes and Ray, those are the things that bring me. Same classification. If summertime, picking tomatoes in a high tunnel in the summer drains you, can you produce a little bit more lettuce or kale in the wintertime to fill that gap?
00:37:36
Speaker
looking at it that way, and that's where I take notes. I take logs. I don't journal, I take logs. But that's the kind of thing. Depends on your personality. I don't dance. I make money moves. I make money moves. That's right. Think about that. Something that goes right along with that, and it was once again at a national meeting, and there was a presentation.
Beyond Profitability: Personal Satisfaction
00:38:02
Speaker
I was trying to look it up in notes that related to today's discussion.
00:38:06
Speaker
And, uh, for the economist here on the podcast today might find this interesting, but I just thought in my head that profitability would be one of the prime indicators of farm success beyond five years. It was not profitability was not the key indicator of continuing beyond five and eight years. And I thought that makes no sense. If you're making money, why would you stop? But it's dissatisfaction while you are making, you know, gainful means.
00:38:37
Speaker
while you're making money, even if you're profitable, but you're miserable, you may get out of, and there's all these other cool factors that, and I'll have to find this, this study. I don't know how, you know, the scope of the study, but it looked at other factors like, you know, does the producer attend meetings where they can get social support from other circles? We've touched on that two or three times. That was a big indicator of whether or not you were going to keep farming your social support and family support.
00:39:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it wasn't profitability. And that blew me out of the water. As a producer, you're producing things and you're doing a good job and making money. But yet that's not the defining factor of why you stay in the business. Interesting. It was interesting to me. Kind of tied in what you were to what you were saying, Alexis. And Alexis, did you were you going to my
00:39:27
Speaker
Don't dance make money moves was supposed to be just a background little goof while you continued on with the draining versus draining versus filling. Yeah. Well, like this podcast, these is bloody shoes, right? Made for dancing. This podcast, while there's like work and we would do research behind the scenes and there's things that we do that takes effort, it's still something that
00:39:55
Speaker
you know, fills me up, fills my cup, right? And so then I can do a better job at other things because I'm, you know, in a better mood or emotionally or whatever, whatever that is. So, but I think taking a serious look at
00:40:10
Speaker
We always say, take a serious look at your finances, but take a serious look at how whatever you're doing affects you emotionally, mentally, but also physically. Sometimes you just can't harvest carrots anymore. It just is the way it is. You'd rather pick happiness. Yeah, there's certain crops I just hate to harvest. I love to use them in bouquets or whatever.
00:40:35
Speaker
They sell well, like there's no reason not to grow them other than I hate to harvest them. And that's enough for me. Like I just, I, they don't inspire me to harvest them.
Personal Preferences to Reduce Burnout
00:40:45
Speaker
And so they just take up space. They don't get harvested that earlier, whatever your personal reason it is, that's good enough. That's your personal reason. I think what we're talking about are, are some different ways to combat burnout. So, you know, that's, that's one way is just to,
00:41:02
Speaker
It's at some point sit down whether it's today or in the winter and figure out how you can take some of that off of your plate so you don't feel as burned out. But be aware that I've never met a farmer who, even if they think they're doing it all right, which they never do,
00:41:21
Speaker
They're always burned out. So if you're still burned out after you made changes next year, it's okay. It's just part of it, right? Like Ray said, where you're always next to your people, there's always something to improve on. And sometimes what you need to improve on is not just your weed control, but it's your boundary setting. Um, especially when you live where you work, you guys are touching on so many of my, even my personal mechanisms in life, like the,
00:41:46
Speaker
Journaling writing things down taking stock or getting with a other group of like-minded people that have similar life experiences So that I can kind of measure myself and you know recalibrate myself but yeah, you guys are touching on a lot of the things just not necessarily in farming but just Support that I give myself or get from others. You guys are touching on a lot of those things I remember this is just a very brief I remember
00:42:12
Speaker
in periods like that, especially when it's very hot and just, yeah, intense and the weed and the disease and insect pressure are like at their peak, just like everything is coming at you. The times where I would kind of stand up and get a head rush while working out in the field or like these moments of intense clarity and kind of like,
00:42:36
Speaker
out of body and I remember you can smell the sunshine. This might not be a good thing. Yeah, it could be heat stroke, Brad. I could be dying. This is heat stroke. I don't want to be right. Yeah, I don't want to. I don't want to sit in the shade. Yeah. Well, another thing, Alexis, you said to me, I think last year was you
00:43:03
Speaker
I was asking you if you did any growing of flowers throughout the season. I was trying to figure out, I was getting into a little bit of the flower arranging and was just kind of curious and feeling it out. And you said something like you've decided to rest with the trees. That's what you said. I thought it was very poetic and- Thank you. I'm sure I stole it from someone. I'm a tree guy, so it hit for me. But I wonder, like,
00:43:30
Speaker
I assume that was the result of some learning about yourself you had to do.
00:43:37
Speaker
Did you try not to you tried to go you know palm tree year-round kind of vibe and oh I'm a burn the candle for us cut the middle open and see if there's more wick in there Josh one time told me that he's like when Alexis goes out. It's gonna be like the Sun exploding
00:44:02
Speaker
If it don't matter what direction you're looking at or where you are that is a state, you will go with that. That meteor that went over Kentucky, that was Alexis in real life. Inprint shadows, permanently. I think it's been those kinds of comments along with just aging and, you know, not just like my body doesn't work the same way that it did before, which is a fact, but also
00:44:31
Speaker
that just mentally I have other goals for myself.
Learning from Nature to Manage Energy
00:44:35
Speaker
I'd like to think of myself a little bit wiser, but it's not a sustainable pace. If we take our cues from nature and farming, it felt very helpful to take my cue from them as far as resting. We have these big mighty oaks, we have all of these beautiful plants,
00:44:54
Speaker
And yes, certainly some are evergreen, but even our evergreens don't do what they do in the summer, right? They just kind of, I'm almost more like an evergreen, right? And I'm just kind of hanging. I'm not really growing, but I'm just doing some like behind the scenes work to stabilize myself for spring and just chilling. And so resting when the trees rest. Now I don't know if that's enough rest, I would say, but it was a helpful thought process for me as like a weird plant nerd.
00:45:21
Speaker
It's like the crunchy granola mafias threat is like, you'll be sleeping with the trees tonight. You're like, sounds fine to me. Like, is there a hammock or is it just like an on the ground situation? Is it as fertilizer? Well, I believe hammock was my first thought when you said resting with the trees. I was like, all right. I have one in my backyard in the trees right now. And that's where I'm going later on. I believe it's determined. And this is this sounds like a typical set up for my bits, so it's not.
00:45:51
Speaker
I believe that they've determined that even deciduous trees continue to photosynthesize slightly through their bark even during winter.
00:46:01
Speaker
very interesting and wild. Like, you know, we think of it as the big photosynthetic mass, but there's actually this aspect of, yeah. Chloroplasts everywhere. Yes. It's because sleeping is- Specialized organelles. Sleeping isn't like arrested motion. Arresting isn't arrested motion. It's not nothingness, right? It's not freezing. There's something else happening. It's kind of just a different type of activity.
00:46:27
Speaker
I know I tell people when I'm taking a nap, I am busy and I'm getting things done.
Setting Boundaries for Personal Time
00:46:38
Speaker
Listen, I had a boss tell me and I will remember this till the day I stopped working. Honestly, till the day I die. It's funny. So it's, I'm very aggressive.
00:46:51
Speaker
That was what he told you? I could have told you that. I also remember that. They said sometimes, especially in extension, where yes, people, but in farming in general, I think yes, people were always trying to make a sale, small business, whatever it is. We always want to say yes.
00:47:11
Speaker
It's okay to have your, I've probably said this before, but it's okay to have, when you have your calendar open and you're looking whether or not you can do something for somebody, you know, to put your finger, like physically take your finger and put it on that date in your calendar and just say, I have something on that day.
00:47:26
Speaker
I won't forget it because it was the awareness of, yes, I could technically put something that day or yes, I can technically do something, but how does that affect all of the other things I'm already committed to? Or by not having that time to just either do nothing or plan or whatever that is and not be
00:47:50
Speaker
uh, what's the word I'm looking for? Like responsible for someone, someone else and something or doing something for someone else. And man, have I used that. Like you're not lying. You're just putting your finger on the date and saying, I have something on that day. So it's been good. Well, I think that we've probably talked your
Normalizing Burnout in Farming
00:48:10
Speaker
ear off about this. And I think that the goal was, like I said, from my end was just to make
00:48:15
Speaker
Make sure you know that if you're feeling burnout, that's okay. It's very, very normal. If you're not feeling burnout, that doesn't mean you're doing things wrong. It means you're doing things right. So if you're- An ideal system would be the way the burnout doesn't happen. Exactly, exactly. But knowing what we know about farmers and growers of all sizes.
00:48:34
Speaker
A lot of you are feeling that way. It's okay to feel that way. I'm going to fill you in with another little quote that I use on a regular basis that probably everyone in this podcast would know who said it, but it is to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And that hits home for me constantly. And I have to remind myself of that. So I hope that that works for you guys. I know that I'd like to just say something too. So,
00:49:02
Speaker
If your sense of exhaustion and downness and blues and everything else extends beyond the growing season, and you think maybe there's another problem going on, there's more issues going on, think about reaching out to maybe try to get some help that you need. I know we live in the country with the greatest healthcare system in the world, by all metrics, not. And so there are challenges sometimes with getting access to those things, but if you're able to,
00:49:31
Speaker
Reaching out and talking to someone, whether that be a therapist, a psychologist, a spiritual leader, someone that maybe you trust and can talk to. And if things get really bad, so not to end on a total bummer note, but I was just checking. The suicide rate for farmers is three and a half times as high as it is, three and a half times that of the standard, the general population.
00:49:55
Speaker
And so if you are having those kinds of thoughts or making those types of plans, you can dial 988. That's the suicide and crisis lifeline, but you can also, if you're even in your dark moments, you would hate to be on the phone with somebody. You can also chat with them. They have online chats and text messages and all that kind of fun stuff. That's again, 988. So, you know, there's all kinds, we're talking about the type of burnout that is,
00:50:24
Speaker
not evergreen to go throw back to the trees. It's a product of time and exhaustion and not getting a break and all that kind of stuff. But if you think there's something worse than that going on, and I have personal experience with this, it's okay to say, as Ray said that his mom used to say that it's okay to not be okay. And it's okay to look to people who specialize in helping you be more okay and ask for some help.
00:50:52
Speaker
with that, so not to end on a total bummer of a note. I will say, okay, so that's a bummer.
Ending on a Light Note
00:50:58
Speaker
I'll just share a stupid joke that I was going to say earlier when you were talking about in service to the algorithm. I was going to say, all hail Albert Go rhythm first in his name. Oh my. I knew it. I knew it. You are on standby. I love it.
00:51:19
Speaker
He was so excited. You're like a walking sci-fi reference, Brad. It's so cool. I do like that. I enjoy this crowd. I take care of yourself and we appreciate how difficult it can be to do what you do and look forward to hopefully a world where it's not so hard to do the cool things and important things that our farmers are doing.
00:51:41
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. If you need farming help as far as, you know, you don't know what's dying. You need to know what cover crop to put on because you mowed everything down. You just know that your business plan maybe needs some work. That's all stuff that we can help you with an extension as well. So if you're feeling that just
00:52:05
Speaker
burnout right now and you want some help. As far as the farming side goes, we'd love to help you there as well. You can contact the people on this pod at hortculturepodcastatl.uky.edu. You can also find us on Instagram at
00:52:25
Speaker
Hort Culture Pod and you can message us and check out what's coming up next on there. We'd also love it if you would leave us a review, let us know what you want to hear more of. Right now, we're just coming up with things from our brains, but we have been getting some feedback, so we really appreciate those of you who have sent that and we promise you we've got that on deck for you all. But we hope that as we grow this podcast, you will grow with us and join us next week for some more good plant talk.