Stress, anxiety and depression can kill.
And there are many professionals in the produce industry, from farm to retail shelf, suffering silently, without the knowledge of how to seek support and, when necessary, professional help. This self-sufficient, bootstraps mentality means people aren’t talking enough about how to handle it all and sharing resources.
Marshal Sewell’s father committed suicide during Sewell’s senior year in high school. As the family’s strawberry farm in Plant City, Fla., was approaching harvest, disease destroyed the entire crop. And then the farm’s forklift broke down. They had no specialty crop insurance. And there was so much more. It was one pressing problem piled on top of another.
A school counselor told him sometimes mental illness can be genetic, so he’s at risk as well. “It was a lot, still being in school and having just gone through that. And I really started trying to challenge myself, ‘Hey, this is a mindset thing. I’m gonna figure out how to manage this.’”
Today, Sewell is a strategic accounts manager for U.S. open fields of Bayer Vegetable Seeds and also has become a mental health advocate in the industry. His personal grief led him to work on himself, his own mental health and research the topic.
“I was very quickly indoctrinated into the field of mental health and mental well being,” Sewell said.
Listen to podcast host Amy Sowder’s chat with Sewell on this topic:
“One in every five Americans at some point in time will face a mental illness. But the common misconception is that mental illness is the same as mental health,” Sewell said. “While not all of us may be impacted by mental illness, each and every one of us can participate and be doing things and making choices to proactively address our mental wellbeing.”
Mental hygiene, mental wellbeing, mental health — whatever you call it — is a very stigmatized topic, he said. Because of that, Sewell had to do something.
Gradually, mental health in the agriculture industry has become a public platform from which to help others — farmers, shippers, packers, wholesalers, retail buyers, produce managers — so that they might feel more able to reach out for better solutions and support before making the ultimate, irreversible decision.
Sewell is now a public speaker on this issue and has created MindYourMelon.org, a hub for thoughts and resources that encourage proactive choices and lifestyles.
The website hub provides resources in three categories:
- Food and nutrition;
- Exercise and fitness; and
- Seeking help.
Mind Your Melon is also on Instagram as @mindurmelon.
Dealing with stress, burnout and all the craziness of this industry with inflation, weather and supply chain issues isn’t easy. Healthy coping tools aren’t obvious to to everyone. And Sewell wants to help make those tools accessible and less stigmatized.
“What are we doing for routine stress management? All of us are impacted by some sort of stress in our lives, right?” he said.
Listen to our chat with Sewell on the “Tip of the Iceberg” podcast Episode 10, where we discuss this relevant, critical issue affecting us all.
