Farm community continues discussions
By Kate Ayers
Staff Reporter
The ag industry can play a pivotal role in helping farmers access support resources during stressful times, according to Kim Keller, a farmer from Gronlid, Sask. and co-founder of Saskatchewan Women in Ag.
“I think that the industry as a whole can encourage farmers to reach out by including mental health as a topic at different farm shows, conferences, seminars (and) meetings,” Keller said to Farms.com on Friday.
In addition, the industry could be more proactive versus reactive in order to help prevent the challenging situations farmers face, from escalating.
This proactive approach may involve “the industry training their front-line staff on how to deal with situations that they may come across when they’re working with their farming customers every day. And maybe (information on) how to recognize signs that someone may be struggling,” Keller said.
“I know, (for example), there are some companies out there working out how they might be able to offer confidential counselling to their customers through a third-party type-thing.”
Although there are initiatives to help farmers during stressful times, resources are a work in progress. Additional supports to better serve farmers are still coming down the pipeline.
“I think (other resources are) something we are exploring right now. I think that’ll take more conversations to be happening within the industry to find out how farmers want to reach out for help or how they want to be reached by others offering help,” Keller explained.
“And I don’t think I’m in a position right now to say, ‘this is what we have to do’ but I do think that is something that is top of mind for everyone taking on this conversation and moving forward with it. How do we do a better job at this?”
Overall, feedback from farmers has been positive and discussions are far from over.
“Most of the feedback has been, ‘it’s about time that we talk about this,’ and that most (farmers) are really grateful that we’re starting to talk about (mental health). I think it’s been far too long that we have ignored this side of our health.
“It’s like we’ve opened up the flood gates to this conversation now and no one is willing to close them until we start to deal with it.”
Previous Farms.com coverage on farmer mental health can be found here.