By Mike Renzella
The Haldimand Press
One of the biggest issues faced by the agricultural community is also one of the least talked about: mental health. Rural life already presents many mental health challenges, and the ongoing issues caused by COVID have only amplified the stress and anxiety felt by local farmers.
“The way we look at it, in terms of health care, it was already a problem in some areas of agriculture before the pandemic took hold,” said local farmer and President of the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario (CFFO) Ed Scharringa. “For some, the pandemic made it more prevalent, but for most, mental health is an ongoing issue for farmers, especially ones that are having some difficulty in certain industries.”
According to information published by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, farmers are at risk for mental health issues for a variety of reasons, including living in environments with limited access to mental health services and resources.
Scharringa added that certain industries, such as livestock, often find themselves on unstable financial ground due to the ‘up-and-down’ nature of the industry: “One week, month, or quarter it’s good, and the next you’re at the mercy of the processors. These guys go through a lot of stress.”
Those stresses have only been compounded by the added challenges of meeting the standards and requirements necessary to prevent the ongoing spread of COVID-19. While Scharringa acknowledged the importance of the restrictions, he did not shy away from addressing the impact they have had on the agricultural community at large.
“You take the guys that have to deal with migrant workers…. What kind of mental strain would that put on a person, where you’ve got all those crops sitting out there that you haven’t got enough people to harvest? We’ve got all these protocols that we’re trying to deal with. It’s been a nightmare. A lot of product has been thrown out,” he said, stressing that his views on the issue were his own, and not representative of CFFO.
He continued, “I was on the advisory committee. If you listen to the health guys, they were the ones who had it all right and we had it all wrong, but we could see right through a lot of it. There was a lot of doubleness to it.”
Earlier this spring, transportation restrictions imposed on local farmers by former Medical Officer of Health Dr. Shanker Nesathurai were the subject of local protests. Scharringa touched on the issue: “You’re telling me that these guys can all go on a plane, some 200 of them, and all of a sudden they get to Toronto and only three of them could go on a bus or in a car…. There were a lot of double standards,” he explained. “It has calmed down a bit, especially now that most workers are coming vaccinated … but boy oh boy, at the start of it, Haldimand Norfolk was the worst of the problem.”
Scharringa’s frustration with such issues is a good example of how outside forces can be so influential on the condition of a farmer’s mental health.
“It eventually wears you down to the point of, ‘Am I doing the right thing? What’s the point of keeping on going?’ When they get down so desolate in some ways, some people don’t see a way out, and that’s the sad part,” he continued. “If people don’t see a way out, unless they get help from somebody, whether professional or through family and friends, it can lead to a sad ending.”
An Agri-Committee report presented in the House of Commons in May of 2019 provided a list of recommendations for the Federal government to consider on the mental health in the agricultural community. They included revamping the audit and labour review process to minimize stress and disruption of work, a public awareness campaign to target cyberbullying aimed at the community, an accelerated deployment of high-speed internet to give access to online mental health resources, mental health care and insurance coverage more specifically tailored to farmers’ specific needs, and an increase in research and prevention activities aimed at stopping mental health issues before they develop.
“A lot of people just don’t want to talk about it. It’s a closed subject and nobody wants to admit that they’re under duress, stress, or feeling hopeless. It almost has a sense of weakness to it,” said Sharringa on the roadblocks faced by farmers in talking about, or accessing services, to help with a mental health concern.
He spoke highly of a targeted program found in Quebec called the Sentinel Program: “A sentinel is a person that stands beside you, just like a guard in the army or at a palace,” he said.
The Sentinel Program is a network of individuals, or ‘sentinels’, who are trained to identify people at risk. They are deployed into the farming community, where they regularly interact with farmers. Some of the issues they look for include early signs of distress and suicidal risk behaviours. Once identified, sentinels refer people to the appropriate resources to help them cope. Since the program began in 2016, 57 trainers and 637 sentinels have joined its ranks, with the eventual goal of getting to 800 sentinels across the province.
Scharringa said he has been present for conversations about bringing a similar program to rural Ontario: “It hasn’t gained any traction yet, but that was brought up this spring as one of the avenues to consider. That program works.”
If you need mental health assistance, Ontario’s Mental Health Line is open 24/7 and is staffed with referral specialists ready to help direct callers to local resources: 1-866-531-2600. Ontario is also home to many distress centres offering private, confidential help to anyone in crisis; a list of centres and contact information can be found at dcontario.org. The OFA has a list of resources available to farmers in distress at ofa.on.ca/issues/mental-health.
