The agricultural industry experiences unique stressors, such as chronic uncertainty, financial pressures, intense workloads, and isolation, not seen in other industries. That’s why the non-profit Agriculture Wellness Ontario (AgWO)offers a set of unique programs, designed to support the mental health of agricultural workers across the province.
AgWO includes five programs that address different aspects of farmers’ mental health. These include the Farmers’ Wellness Initiative, 24/7 confidential, phone-based or in-person counselling for farmers; In the Know, a four-hour mental health literacy workshop for the agricultural community; The Guardian Network, a volunteer suicide prevention network; Growth Workshops, short mental health education workshops; and the International Agricultural Worker Wellness Program.
Each initiative meets a specific need for agricultural workers’ mental health. The International Agricultural Worker Wellness Program was added to the list of programs just last year after an advisory team flagged challenges migrant workers were facing.
“Many of these challenges are related to their unique employment as well as their isolation from family, language and culture while working in Ontario. This led to the development of the International Agricultural Worker Wellness Program, which supports the well-being of international agricultural workers through outreach, education and connection to services,” explained Elham Bidgoli, director of communications at the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA).
CMHA and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), launched the AgWO program in September 2022 with the aim of offering free, tailored mental health support to Canadian farmers.
The need for support for Canada’s agricultural community emerged after a University of Guelph study found that many farmers across the country are struggling. The university conducted two online surveys related to farmers’ mental health in Canada in 2016 and 2021.
“They found a number of, I would say, pretty alarming and eye-opening statistics,” said Bethany Parkinson, a beef farmer in Fergus and manager of psychological support and education at AgWO.
The results of the 2021 study showed that farmers were experiencing higher levels of stress, anxiety, depression, emotional exhaustion, suicidal ideation and lowered resilience compared to the general population in Canada. In 2021, 76 per cent of farmers reported experiencing moderate or high perceived stress, a significant, persistent issue.
“They also found, when they updated the study in 2021, that farmers are at higher risk of experiencing substance use as a way of coping with difficulty. So, substances, including things such as alcohol as well as drugs, and the study also found that one in four farmers are at greater risk of experiencing suicidal ideation,” explained Parkinson.
“We have developed our programs out of that research with the support of our funders, and we have continued to expand, which is so awesome.”
Since its inception, AgWO has offered its services free of charge to farmers and farming families. In early April of this year, the AgWO gave its website a makeover, making its services easier to use by consolidating all five services on a single site. Previously, each of the five programs offered by AgWO had its own website.
“There’s a lot of new features on our website, and a lot of things to make it a lot more personable and relatable to farming. For example, we have testimonials of folks that have taken our programs and the benefits they found with our programs for accessing our counselling line, the farmer wellness initiative. We also do have a lot more personal experiences tied to farming,” said Parkinson.
Since its beginnings, the AgWO’s services have been free and they remain a free service for farmers and farming families.
“It’s absolutely free. It’s available in English, French and Spanish, 24/7, 365 days a year, and so anyone that is a farmer, farm worker or family member of a farmer, farm worker does have access to free, unlimited counselling.”
The counsellors all complete a special training, the Canadian agricultural literacy program, which provides them with a background of farming stressors that farmers experience. This means that farmers who call in the line do not have to explain the unique pressures they face because the person on the other end already understands. This ultimately helps provide better support.
“A specialized agricultural mental health line matters because it connects callers with people who understand these realities without needing explanation,” explained Bidgoli.
Raised on her family’s beef and sheep farm, Parkinson herself is familiar with the stressors of farm life.
“Growing up on a farm and growing up rurally, I see the importance of talking about mental health and providing support, but support that is very unique and tailored towards the rural and farming community. It’s very unique, I would say, and it’s difficult to understand the stressors of farming unless folks have actually experienced it, or they have done research there, or they know firsthand the difficulties farmers experience,” said Parkinson.
She added that farming is an unpredictable profession, since so many aspects depend on variables outside the farmer’s control.
“Farmers’ livelihoods are very dependent on weather as well as market prices, commodity fluctuations, tariffs and taxes. Right now, for example, I know my farming community not only [has] difficulty getting out on the land because it’s wet, but the increase in fuel prices,” said Parkinson.
“You almost start to think, ‘is it even worth it being out on the land?’ Things like that have such an impact, and do take an impact on mental health that we don’t often think about within farming.”
Anyone looking for more information on the AgWO program can access the website at www.agriculturewellnessontario.ca.
