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ASB receives presentation regarding farm mental health

The Agricultural Research and Extension Council of Alberta (ARECA) presented before the Wheatland County Agriculture Service Board (ASB), April 3, in order to discuss Agknow, a mental health network for Alberta farmers.

“There has been recent research about farm mental health and the mental health state of our farmers across Canada, and it is aligning very strongly with what (was) found in Australia and Europe and the United States, that farmers are experiencing higher rates of anxiety, chronic stress and depression than the regular population,” said Linda Hunt, director of AB Farm Mental Health for ARECA. “This is for many, many reasons … and the research is also showing that farmers are really resilient … as a farmer and an agrologist, I can say that there are a lot of stressors that farmers have, and because of those stressors … we have weeded out over the number of hundreds of years and have this culture that tends to be more resilient.”

She explained those who were studied tended to be proficient at reframing, planning ahead, and accepting factors completely outside of their control.

Hunt’s presentation indicated 76 per cent of farmers experience moderate to high stress levels, and 20 per cent experience moderate to severe anxiety disorders.

Additionally, one in four farmers examined indicated feelings that their lives were not worth living, wished they were dead or had thoughts of suicide within 12 months of being studied.

“What the research is showing is that it is not usually one event, but it is a combination of a whole bunch of events stacked on top of each other, so it is not just drought for one or two years, it is drought, plus regulation changes, plus, plus, plus,” she said. “In Canada, we are experiencing a lot of changes especially in the oil and gas sector and those changes are affecting not only their farming operations, but often are affecting off-farm work that farmers are doing to manage the risk on the farming side – a lot of those jobs are in oil and gas.”

Members of the ASB indicated to Hunt having noticed within the local community, factors contributing to rising stress, anxiety and depression in farmers being rising input costs, decisions on marketing, weather and drought, chronic pain, isolation and loneliness, the lack or poor timing of government programs, influence by factors outside their control, and perceptions from the public.

More information regarding the presentation is available via the recorded meeting minutes from the ASB meeting, posted publicly to the Wheatland County YouTube channel.

John Watson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Strathmore Times

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