Any farmer can tell you that farming has some very real challenges. The many hours spent alone in a tractor, the sudden disappointment of pests and disease, and being subject to changing environmental conditions can lead to a level of stress that most people outside of agriculture will never fully be able to fathom.
So what are farmers in Saskatchewan getting for mental health supports? Are these systems working and are they timely? These are some of the questions that Dr. Michelle Pavloff and Sharalee Laventure were asking when they realized that there was a gap in access to mental health support for farmers in the province.
Through their research at Saskatchewan Polytech they found that producers were running into difficulties with physical distance from therapists. Getting away from the farm for up to a day at a time for an appointment of hour or two just isn’t feasible when there are chores to be done; and then there was the other issue of the majority of therapists just not knowing or understanding the business of farming, says Sharalee Laventure of SaskAg Matters.
The results of this research inspired the launch of SaskAg Matters, a privately-funded mental health network for farmers in Saskatchewan. On the website, saskagmatters.ca, producers or their families can search through a list of therapists and receive access to six hours of free counselling, either in person or online.
Laventure says that the SaskAg Matters initiative has had a lot of great supporters, including Cargill and people in Saskatchewan putting on funding events, such as dinners and even the auction of a heifer, and that donations are always welcome.
See the video below for the full interview.
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