Grand island, Neb. ? As the damaging effects of the Midwest’s drought pile up on its farms, so do the stresses.

There are the withering crops. The looming bank loans. And, sometimes, the ensuing depression.

But more and more, farmers are reaching out for help, often finding it through farm crisis hot lines that connect them with legal aid, financial assistance and mental-health counseling.

It’s a new way of thinking for farmers, who are usually a fiercely independent lot.

“People don’t really want to talk about these things but they bother them just the same,” said Rodney Dannehl, a clinical social worker in Dickinson, N.D. “At some time or other everyone needs help, and you’re not a weakling for seeking it.”

The past few years have been especially trying, thanks to the drought.

Ranchers from the Dakotas to Kansas are selling their cattle because they can’t feed them. Some grain farmers could do nothing but watch as the drought dried up their crops.

Nebraska has seen its driest period since the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s, and the state’s economy lost an estimated $600 million on crops, hay, pastures and ranges last year. Some farmers and ranchers are facing their third or fourth year of drought.

There are other problems, too, including trying to understand the complicated new farm bill, low commodity prices and increased competition from large corporate farms.

The impact is driving the increase in hot line use.

The Iowa Concern phone service set a record in November with 951 calls, up about 200 from the previous high of November 1985 during the height of that decade’s farm crisis.

Bankrupt farmer Hiram Simmering looks over the empty pens on his farm near Wellington, Kan. Simmering is one of a growing number of farmers leaving the business because of the recent drought. Taking a lesson from the farm crisis of the 1980s, many states are offering assistance to farm families, including mental health counseling.

Farmers and ranchers made 425 calls in January to the Nebraska Rural Response Hotline, easily surpassing the number of calls made the same time a year ago, coordinator Michelle Soll said.

“A large portion are related to the drought, to the low yields or no yields,” said Soll. “There is quite a bit of despair and grief.”

Dave Mussmann, who farms about a thousand acres in Nuckolls County, said counseling helped him realize he was not alone after drought conditions in 2000 compounded losses from the two previous years.

“I say by holding this in, it’s a poison and it screws up your mind,” he said.

Had he not sought counseling and mediation, he would have quit farming. Instead, Mussmann was able to extend his loan repayment schedule and keep his farm.

Besides the mental-health counseling, hot lines also offer help with money troubles. Nebraska farmers facing insistent creditors can spend an hour with a lawyer and a financial counselor from the Nebraska Farm Mediation Service.

Arriving for the free sessions at Central Community College, men in seed-company coats and jeans, and women in warmups or pantsuits keep their heads low, hoping they won’t run into anyone they know.

The counseling sessions, funded through churches and the Nebraska Health and Human Services System, are in such demand that money is running thin, forcing a cut from 300 vouchers issued in August to 100 a month for January, February and March.

Soll said the restriction comes at one of the most stressful times of the year for farmers and ranchers, as bankers decide whether to issue operating loans for the coming year.

In South Dakota, farm wives can get all kinds of help, but they may not want anyone to know, even their spouses.

Women who call looking for food pantries often say they must keep their requests secret for fear their husbands would beat them, and they drive miles out of their way for assistance so they won’t run into neighbors, said Vi Leonard, of the Perkins County Extension Service.

“These are the people that grow the food that feeds the world,” Leonard said.