Montana Agri-Women Address Rural Suicide Crisis With Mental Health Resources, Community Support

Maggie Howley has a straightforward way of describing the contradiction at the heart of Montana's rural suicide crisis: farmers and ranchers who spend their lives caring for land and livestock often neglect themselves entirely.

"Montana, we're good stewards of land and stewards of livestock, but sometimes we forget about stewarding ourselves," said Howley, president of Montana Agri-Women. "We're just trying to be everywhere and helping people, and we want to and do in our communities, but then we kinda weaken ourselves."

That tension shaped the focus of Montana Agri-Women's annual meeting in Billings, themed "Steady Minds in Open Skies." The event featured a panel discussion on mental health, suicide prevention, and resources available to rural communities, organized in direct response to what researchers and health professionals describe as disproportionate suicide rates among Montana farmers and ranchers.

Montana Agri-Women is a grassroots statewide organization of approximately 45 members that advocates for agricultural issues and policies. This year, the membership identified mental health and fraud as its top priorities, a pairing that reflects the range of pressures bearing down on agricultural families across the state.

Howley said a central goal is practical: equip community members to recognize warning signs and feel less paralyzed when someone around them is struggling. "Sometimes when it's in our community, we're just like, we just don't have any tools, and that's really what we want to do," she said.

The need for those tools is underscored by conditions specific to rural Montana. Patty Yoder, a psychiatric nurse with the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Billings, identified geography and environment as contributing factors, along with access to lethal means and a persistent shortage of mental health services in rural areas. Those structural barriers make early community intervention, exactly the kind Montana Agri-Women is promoting, a critical line of response before professional help can be reached.

The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by call or text for anyone in crisis.