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RAYMOND, Miss. -- Longtime dairy farmers David and Will Gilmer made the tough decision six years ago to get out of the dairy cattle business. The father-and-son team decided to transition their farm to beef cattle. However, the beef cattle business comes with its own stressful challenges.

Dr. Kim Klunk expected a certain level of stress when she began practicing veterinary medicine two years ago near her hometown of Magnolia, Mississippi. “It’s one of those things that you hear other people talk about when you’re in vet school, but you don’t realize the complexity of all of it until you experience it yourself,” said Klunk, who works with her mother Dr. Rachel Bateman at her mixed-animal clinic in McComb. It’s a common realization for many veterinarians who deal daily with financial concerns, work-life balance, compassion fatigue and client relationships among other stressful challenges of the profession.

While every job has stress points, few people go to work knowing they could lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in any given day. That is a reality for many in the agricultural sector, and mental health struggles are a frequent result.