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Coping With A Stressful Harvest Season

It's Mental Illness Awareness week, and for farmers it's been a particularly stressful harvest season.
 
This week's snow has set back farmers' harvest schedules and added more stress to farm families.
 
The Do More Agriculture Foundation has been a champion of mental health in the sector since the formation of the non-profit organization in 2017.
 
Executive Director Adelle Stewart says farmers need to know it's okay to feel sad, defeated and frustrated.
 
"When we honour what we're going through and we're able to talk about these times of stress with other people, it's about understanding when we may need help and support maybe outside of our family."
 
Stewart points to the organization's website as a great place to find provincial help line phone numbers to reach out and talk with someone.
 
She adds, community members and producers can ask each other how they're handling the stress, which are conversations starting to happen more.
 
"If a fellow neighbour farmer had come down with an illness or a broken leg, we would be pitching in saying, 'How are you doing? What can I do to help?'" she explains. "It's shifting those same principles of conversation into mental health."
 
However, when it comes to helping others you may notice struggling with mental health, Steward reminds people it's all about assisting within your means.
 
"It's in our nature, the producer and agriculture lifestyle, to want to fix and help each other, and it's also important to recognize when something may be outside of our expertise."
 
She says you can start a conversation with someone addressing what you've noticed, asking if you're on the right track with your observations.
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