b'Jeff Winton, founder and chairman of Rural Minds, leads the only national nonprofit focused exclusively on mental health equity for the 46 million people living in rural America.The Cost of Silence RESILIENCE IS ONEof agricultures most cel-ebrated traits. It shows up in the way farmers and seed professionals absorb risk, adapt to shifting mar-kets and keep showing up when the workday stretches in Rural America long past daylight. It is embedded in family operations passed down through generations and in companies that survive downturns by staying disciplined and determined.But resilience, when it becomes the only acceptable Why mental health has become aposture, can quietly crowd out vulnerability.leadership issue for agriculture andIn rural America, where independence is taught early and reinforced often, that pressure can make it what it will take to make asking fordifficult to admit when something is wrong. Asking for help part of the job. help can feel like letting the team down. Silence can By Aimee Nielson, Seed World U.S. Editor masquerade as strength.That tension sits at the center of rural mental health and it is the reason Jeff Winton founded Rural Minds, the only national nonprofit focused exclusively on mental health equity for the 46 million people living in rural America.People romanticize life on a farm, Winton says. But underneath that facade, in many cases, there are struggles and there are hardships.He speaks from experience, not abstraction.A Personal Loss That Exposed aSystemic ProblemWinton grew up on a multi-generational dairy farm in western New York, returned there later in life and now leads a national organi-zation from the same land that shaped him. Rural Minds itself emerged from a moment that forever altered his family.My nephew Brooks worked on our family dairy farm, Winton says. By all measures, he was the life of the party. He was a very happy, very gregarious young man.Two days after thanking his uncle at his brothers wedding, Brooks died by suicide. He was 28 years old and left behind three-year-old twins.He was the absolute last person we would have ever expected, Winton says. Clearly, he was suffering in silence.In the days that followed, the family faced a decision familiar to many rural communities: whether to talk openly about what happened or quietly move on. It was Wintons mother who set the tone.12/ SEEDWORLD.COMFEBRUARY 2026'