Action needed now to address crisis in farmers' mental health

If there’s one thing that Canadian farmers need in 2020 and beyond, it’s better access to mental health care.

Sure, there are a lot of other things they need – good weather, higher prices and an end to trade wars, to start with.

But if farmers have worse mental health than the rest of the population, and we’re relying on them to produce our food, is there anything more important than trying to help them get better?

Evidence is mounting that the problem is worsening. Ever since Canadian farmers’ mental health was identified and quantified as an issue by University of Guelph researcher Andria Jones-Bitton and her team in 2016, farmers have been standing up like never before to tell their stories of anxiety, depression, stress and other mental health woes.

Other studies in the UK, the U.S., Australia, Finland and Norway concluded with similar findings. Poor farmer health affects their families, their livestock, and their overall ability to produce food.

And that’s bad timing, considering we’re counting on them to not only keep Canadians fed, but the rest of the world too. Canada is the fifth largest exporter of agricultural products.

Now, a research team led by Jones-Bitton have new findings, just published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. It’s the first study ever to separately explore risk factors for the three components of burnout among farmers – that is, exhaustion, cynicism and low professional efficacy.

It turns out that in response to a survey of more than 1,000 farmers across Canada, 12 per cent could be classified as burned out. Almost 45 per cent were on the road to being burnt out. They are overwhelmed as a result of the work they do. To me, that’s shocking. In their paper, Jones-Bitton and researchers from Guelph (population medicine master’s student Briana Hagen), York University (psychology professor Stephen Fleming) and Laurentian University (social work professor Sandra Hoy), write that the status quo is concerning not only for the affected individuals and their families, but also for the farming sector, given potential associated risks to Canadian agriculture via lowered productivity.

So, what’s to be done? Well, at Guelph, Hagen and Jones-Bitton are leading the development of a new farmers’ mental health literacy training program to offer help. Measures are starting to emerge from the province to offer support. Farmers have acknowledged the problem and are offering peer-to-peer support as well.

And while that is an excellent start, something bigger, unified and long term is needed – like a brain trust that has the umph to address the source of farmers’ mental health woes.

That initiative might be a centre that can develop strategies that lead to a system change. Jones-Bitton and her co-authors say their study results “serve as a call to action for increased farmer supports to decrease work demands and increase resources, particularly through addressing systemic issues related to workload and via positive family, friend, community, and industry support and engagement,” they say.

That is an awesome and perhaps overwhelming undertaking. If weather, trade and prices have your back against the wall, and you’re feeling isolated and overwhelmed, how do not only get a grip, but actually kick back and make change? How do farmers come to be valued for their vital work and for the quality of their essential contributions?

Collective action from academics, farmers, health care professionals and government is a must. Failure to address the situation is tantamount to ignoring one of the worst mental health realities in our country.

A national centre for farmers’ mental health is my New Year’s wish for Canadian agriculture. Maybe you can’t change the weather, or Donald Trump, or world prices for commodities. But you can help people deal with these matters when the chips are down.

And let there be no doubt – the chips are at rock bottom.