Province seeks tech solutions to support farmers’ mental health

Innovation organization offers $10,000 for winning platform to help with stress

SASKATOON Innovation Saskatchewan is offering $10,000 to entrepreneurs with winning ideas for remotely-accessible tech platforms to help farmers manage stress.

The competition follows a sharp uptick in calls to the Farm Stress line, a dedicated support line for farmers in crisis.

Innovation Saskatchewan CEO Kari Harvey said the line received 679 calls in the 2018-19 year, more than double the 320 logged in the previous year.

“Mental health is a challenge across all sectors. But we know that it’s a unique challenge in agriculture, just given the things you can’t control in that industry,” Harvey said.

A survey of more than 1,100 Canadian farmers led by Dr. Andria Jones-bitton of the University of Guelph in 2015 found that more than half of respondents met criteria for anxiety and more than a third met the criteria for depression, both well above the national average.

Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan president Todd Lewis said farmers, like society at large, have become more vocal about their mental health in recent years.

He noted many farmers are familiar with financial hardship, and are often in isolated areas with limited access to medical services.

“It’s not so hard to self-isolate out here in rural Saskatchewan,” Lewis said.

Many farmers in the province have also been contending with a poor harvest and ongoing trade struggles with China, both of which have cut deep into their incomes.

“There’s a lot you can’t control on a farming operation and you’re usually working in an isolated environment — both can take a toll on the mental health of farmers and ranchers,” agriculture minister David Marit said in a release.

Harvey said the winning application or applications will create a digital platform to help farmers manage stress; no specific format is prescribed. She said multiple

Mental health is ... a unique challenge in agriculture, just given the things you can’t control in that industry.

winners could be selected if there are enough outstanding applications.

“We expect that there will be things like apps that come forward, but we don’t want to rule out any other thing that we haven’t thought of,” she said. “That’s why we’re keeping our ask broad.”

Lewis said he hopes the winning application is accessible, user-friendly and protects the users’ privacy, especially since many farmers may live in small communities.

“The more we can have people talking about it and taking the stigma away from it, the better.”