A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Depression among Farming Populations Worldwide

Agricultural activities and risk of treatment for depressive disorders among the entire French agricultural workforce: the TRACTOR project, a nationwide retrospective cohort study

Background

Although depression is a major issue among farming population, to date, there have been few studies on specific agricultural activities. We aimed to investigate whether, among the entire French farm manager (FM) workforce, certain agricultural activities are more strongly associated with depression than others.

Methods

This nationwide retrospective cohort study used data from an administrative health database available to the TRACTOR project. This database pertains to the entire French agricultural workforce (overseas workers not included). Data were analyzed from January 2021 to December 2022. All FMs that worked at least once over the period 2002-2016 were included. The outcome measure was the association between 26 agricultural activities and the risk of depression measured as hazard ratios (HRs) after adjusting for age, sex, and pre-existing medical comorbidities. The time to first depression insurance declaration, or first antidepressant prescription claim was used as the underlying timescale. For each activity, the reference/control group included all FMs that never performed the considered activity between 2002 and 2016, while the exposed group included FMs that performed the considered activity at least once from 2002 to 2016. Four sensitivity analyses were conducted to test hypotheses, and to address potential sources of bias.

Findings

There were 84,507 (7.76%; 28.2 cases per 1000 person-years) depression cases among 1,088,561 FMs (mean age 46.6 [SD 14.1]). Compared to other activities, dairy farming (HR = 1.37, 95% confidence interval: 1.32-1.42), cow farming (HR = 1.53 [1.47-1.59]), poultry and rabbit farming (HR = 1.37 [1.27-1.50]), and mixed farming (HR = 1.30 [1.24-1.36]) were more strongly associated with depression. Sex differences were observed, with most of the time, risks higher for females than for males.

Interpretation

Agricultural activities at risk of depression among the entire French agricultural workforce were identified. These findings do represent a crucial first step on the road to implement effective preventive measures against depression to determine where additional resources should be allocated to screen for depression, along with intervention.

Funding

MIAI@Grenoble Alpes, and Mutualité Sociale Agricole.

The Health of Migrant Agricultural Workers in Europe: A Scoping Review

Agriculture is a niche market for migrant workers, and one of the sectors with the highest rates of accidents, deaths and work-related health problems. To review and synthesize existing literature on the health conditions of international migrant agricultural workers in Europe. A scoping review of scientific literature published until March 2021 was conducted in PubMed, Scopus, WoS and OpenGrey, following Arksey & O'Malley's theoretical framework where 5894 references were retrieved and screened. Nineteen articles were selected, reviewed and synthetized. The country with the highest number of studies published (n = 9) was Spain. The design of the studies was mainly cross-sectional (n = 13). The main health problems identified were: lower back pain and other musculoskeletal problems, dermatitis, gastrointestinal and respiratory infections, anxiety, stress, depression and barriers to access healthcare services. Migrant agricultural workers are a neglected population with conditions of vulnerability and precariousness, physical and mental health problems and poor working conditions. Interventions to reduce or eliminate language, cultural and administrative barriers to ensure access to healthcare services are needed, as well as designing a common European framework to protect the rights of migrant agricultural workers and their families.

Diverse adaptation strategies helped local food producers cope with initial challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic: Lessons from Québec, Canada

The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the vulnerability of food systems to disturbances. Advocates have promoted short food supply chains as more resilient and adaptable thanks to their embeddedness in local economic and ecological networks. As part of a broader case study on challenges facing farmers in local food supply chains in Québec, Canada, we asked farmers about the pandemic's impacts on food production and marketing in the province, including how food producers coped with these challenges. We sent an online questionnaire to 1,046 farmers who distribute food through direct marketing in Québec, identified through consumer-facing online platforms. We conducted follow-up interviews with 15 of the 133 farmers that completed the questionnaire to gain a better understanding of their pandemic-related challenges and opportunities, as well as their adaptation needs and strategies. We identified four main types of challenges among farmers: workforce shortages, balancing food demand and supply, changes in sales outlets and marketing channels, and other operational and development issues. In turn, six key adaptation strategies helped farmers reorganize their marketing and sales, which we categorize as: redistribution, streamlining, replacement, collaboration, farm adjustment, and outlet adjustment. Most surveyed local farmers felt well-prepared to adapt to the four major challenges that the Covid-19 pandemic forged or escalated, and our findings suggest that they demonstrated remarkable resilience to additional challenges posed by the pandemic. Our study therefore contributes important insights about how flexibility and redundancy among local farmers stabilized the local food system during the onset of a global pandemic.