Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: What is your biggest concern when it comes to mental health and farming today, or agriculture, the agriculture industry, what is your biggest concern?
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Well, my biggest concern is that farmers are leaving farming when they have poor mental health. And we are losing farmers to suicide. So we need to be addressing that.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Hey, folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, where we break down complex market trends into simple, actionable advice. It's your quick guide to better farmers farming decisions.
So thanks for joining me here once again, Dr. Hagan. We, we had you on the show a few weeks back on episode 69 of the what the Futures podcast. And we had seven people in the industry join me to discuss the latest tariff environment and the impact it was having on their operations, their farm businesses and their organizations, of course, here with the Canadian center for Agricultural well Being. And I thought it'd be very important to have you share the impact. So thanks again for jumping on that episode.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Yeah, you're welcome.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Your update was appreciated. But I want to take a moment here, I want to take a week to record a standalone episode, Mental Health and Agriculture. It deserves more space, especially in these unprecedented times that we face today. It has its moments of stress each and every year, but it's more than that and there's a lot going on right now. So I wanted to take the time for a dedicated episode. Suicide, loss of life, loss of youth, a great friend, a neighbor, a colleague, a family member. It has impacted us all, each one of us, across the prairies. It is present in the farming industry and in Canadian agriculture. Mental health struggles are often private, behind the scenes and unexpected.
And so my goal here for today is, number one, I want to make this real for the people listening to the episode. I want them to know that getting help is a real thing and that anybody listening here today can access these resources.
I want to spread awareness on what the resources are, you know, what is available. And I want the last one on the most important. And Brianna, I'm going to get you to help me here in a second, but I want farmers to save this contact number in your phone right now. Take a moment, Brianna. I'll let you read it out for me. The phone number for the crisis line.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So the farmer crisis line in Canada is 1866 farms 01. So it should be easy to remember, easy to access, and you can call it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There is no struggle that is too small or too large to reach out for help.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: All right, folks, put that in your phone right now. Take a moment for you for a friend for a family member.
Just get that in your phone. And I want you to know as well that it's okay not to feel okay or it's okay not to be okay. And you do not need to reach your limits before seeking help.
Brianna said it already, but there's no such thing as too small of a concern. You don't have to get to the breaking point to reach for help.
It could be as little as a few minutes of a conversation that could help you out. So Brianna, welcome back to the what the Futures podcast. Thanks for joining me here once again.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Thanks for having me back. I'm excited to talk more about it.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: I've got some questions. I want to go over some of the resources as well, but I think it's important just to go through the background of the Canadian center of Agricultural well Being. You jump on the website, there's a lot more than just the farm helpline, there's a lot more than the crisis line. So why don't you give us a little bit more of a background?
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. And stop me if I go on too long because we have been working pretty hard over at the center for the last couple of years and even like before that. So the center came into being at the end of 2022 and we really got hopping in 2023 and we were developed as a direct response to that federal call to action for the crisis in farmer mental health. So there was a huge gap when it came to services, research, program development that were farm tailored. So that's what the center was developed for. I was brought on after I completed my PhD and my postdoc over at the University of Guelph in farmer mental health. And then I was brought on to lead this organization with a group of amazing farmers and researchers and psychotherapists to be able to create some programming to help farmers increase their knowledge about mental health and mental health struggles, what they might look like on the farm, and then also to create programming so that people who work with farmers in terms of the healthcare field understand what it's like to be a farmer and how seeking help for a mental health problem might be different for a farmer. A pain scale might be different for a farmer when they hit the ER than it is for other folks from other businesses or the general population. So we've been working over the last couple of years to really amplify those messages and create evidence based programming to put into the communities.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: So I wanted to go back to something you said right off the hop though.
So the University Of Guelph. You said there's a farmer mental health program. There is that.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: No. So it's actually, I'm glad you asked. So, no, there isn't a farmer mental health program, but my PhD is in epidemiology, so it's actually a little bit of a. We're a little bit of an odd duck in that department. But my mentor and my PhD advisor, Dr. Andrea Jones, she started looking into farmer mental health as a veterinarian. She was seeing farmers die by suicide, struggle with their mental health, leave farming. And she had said to some colleagues, let me look and see what's available for folks, because this is just not okay. And when she started to look, there was nothing. There was no data available, there was no programming available. And she just kind of went down that path of, okay, there's nothing here in Canada. We need to create it. So I was brought on as a PhD student and then now we're 10 years later.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Okay, thanks. Thanks for clearing that up. That's great.
Okay, so you talked about the, you know, the professionals in the space that, you know, may not come from a farm, but they're mental health professionals out there. Can we just dive into the programming side just a little bit more here on what they are accessing from the center?
[00:07:03] Speaker B: Sure, yeah. So they, what they're accessing is the Canadian Ag Literacy Program. So we developed a. It's a four hour intensive that they can take for developmental reasons or if they want to, or professional development reasons. And if they want to be a part of our crisis line or any of the services that we will be providing to farmers, it's a must. It's a must do. Even for folks who work in agriculture, it's a must do because it's very comprehensive. And when we did our pilot of that program, it showed that clinicians were more confident in dealing with cases involving farmers. Their attitudes towards what farmers needs might be changed and they felt better prepared to deliver services in times of crisis, which was really important. So our program chief programs officer worked really hard to make sure that the vignettes within that, the clinical cases were all things that were based off of data that we had collected over years and put into kind of case studies that they could go through and talk about things like as simple as language that farmers use or cues that farmers might give that they're struggling that look different.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: Okay, and is this, is this something that even, you know, myself, I could enroll and go through this program or is it meant specific for the professionals.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: In the space so kelp, the Canadian Ag Literacy Program. KELP is meant specifically for clinicians. You have to be a clinician to take it. But in the know is the mental health literacy training that we developed for farmers and people who work in agriculture where same kind of the opposite where you're teach being taught about mental health and what it looks like on the farm, but from an agricultural perspective rather than clinical perspective. So that would be what I would suggest and highly suggest that you sign up for and take through the center because that shows like you know what happens when you go to your neighbor's house and things. You just get gut feeling something's off. How do you ask the question about their mental health in a way that feels okay for you and for the person you're talking to? And really importantly, what do you do if they say to you actually I'm not doing well, what do you do then? Because we found that in our research, what people talked about was people in ag, they care. They care about their neighbors, they care about their community, they care about the sector and they're afraid to say the wrong thing. They're afraid to make a situation worse. Especially when it comes to severe mental health crises or where you think someone might be struggling with suicidal ideation. You don't want to say something that's going to make someone feel worse. So in the Know is a program that helps you get some tools in your tool belt to be able to have those conversations safely and know what to do.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Is this like a self guided program or do you guys do webinars or how do you access this if you're in agriculture and want to learn more?
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Yeah, so it is not self guided yet. That is one of our future steps for this program. But right now we deliver this program virtually and we deliver this program in person. So we have several facilitators across the country and we continually are adding new facilitators to our group and they can come to your community if you have have, you know, your work, your work wants to host. And in the know you can contact us for that. Or we also host some just online where you can sign up on our website and come in virtually.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Okay, all right, great. And from a planning perspective, would this be something that you could start planning for next winter already? Obviously busy season around the corner here, but absolutely. Yeah.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: Okay. Now when I just want to go back to the Canadian Egg Literacy Program. Calp, how do you reach or how do you get this information into the hands of those mental health professionals? Like is this something where they're coming to you for guidance or finding you, or are you reaching out to them? How does that work?
[00:11:11] Speaker B: So both. Again, one of the ways was when we developed our crisis line that was in partnership with Telus Health. So they had over 200 staff that we trained with CALP so that they were able to staff a 24. 7 crisis line with intake workers and crisis workers that were fully trained in calp. So that was kind of our first big partnership was to make sure that that crisis line was, was ready to rock. And like I said, the crisis line is now available and everybody on that staff has been trained. And then we put out a call to psychotherapists, social workers, clinical counselors across the country that wanted to get involved in this type of program. And our call was met with more, more interest than we were able to host at one time. So we've kind of approached it from the bottom up and top down there and have had great success so far.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: All right, excellent.
Let's talk about those partners a little bit. You know, how, if I may ask, how does this all come together? How does this resource and these programs, how does this get funded? How does it come together?
[00:12:28] Speaker B: So depending on what workshop or what program you're talking about, it might be a little bit different. We are a not for profit entity, so we work with federal funding through the Department of Agriculture aafc. We work with partners who would like to get involved and have our industry partners that would like to get involved and have vested interest in making sure that farmers mental health is good and we work with them to bring programs to them. They partner with us so we can expand our programs and individuals. There are some individuals that like to get involved and donate their time volunteering or donate their money so that we can expand these programs as we continue to grow.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: Okay, and so you mentioned Telus Health actively involved. Any other organizations that you want to shout out?
[00:13:18] Speaker B: I'd like to shout out fcc, who's partnering with us so far, Credit Canada, who is partnering with us on that crisis line as well and has been a supporter of our work since the beginning. They have been so invested in making sure that the programming is ready, the programming is right. They gave us so much space and trusted our expertise to be able to develop something that was ready to hit the ground and didn't hit the ground until it was ready. So I think there's a lot of folks who are really, really keen to get something going because there's such a need for this type of programming that some things maybe Hit the ground a little too early or they're not evidence based, and then continuity of the program becomes a problem. And that was something at CCAW that we were adamant that all of our programming and the crisis line as well was evidence based and had that ability to be longitudinally available. We don't want this to be a service that just goes away. And what we found in the past and what research has shown is if we don't use evidence based medicine or evidence based approaches to these things, then people don't use them, or they don't find them as valuable as we want them to, and then they don't come back, they don't recommend it to a friend, and these things kind of fizzle out.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: So you said evidence based there a couple times.
Like explain that to, to me, someone who doesn't have a clue.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. So, and this is something that, you know, it's not, it's not always well known, but all of our programming is evidence based. And I will talk about that a lot just from my background. It was very, very important to me. So evidence based programming means that all of the case studies, everything that went into it, is based on research that we've conducted and gold standard programming that has already exist and it has been properly piloted and evaluated. So we can say statistically that our programming changes knowledge, attitudes and beliefs because we do data collection when we're piloting the program to test those things. So we want to make sure that we are statistically moving the needle when we train people. Whether it's from a mental health literacy side or from an agricultural literacy side. These things need to be evidence based.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Okay, now I want to get into a couple questions just about what we can look for and maybe talk about, you know, debunking some myths and stuff like that. But before we do that, I just want to ask for the ccaw, you know what, we talked about areas of focus already, I believe, unless I missed anything there. But I also wanted to talk about your guiding principles because, you know, the evidence base, what you mentioned about evidence based, that to me is something that stands out. But you know, from a guiding principles perspective, you know, what else is out there that you want to touch on?
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I can't say it enough about being evidence based. That's a huge guiding principle for us at ccaw.
When the center was developed, it was something that we really, really wanted our research and our programming to reflect that. So that's a huge one for us. Another thing we say constantly is for farmer. No, nothing for farmers without farmers. So we make sure that again, from the beginning, we're working grassroots up. The data that we're collecting is data from Canadian farmers. The things that we're designing to implement have the voice of farmers in it. The staff at ccaw, the great majority of them are also farmers. So that was something that is really, really important to us. So making sure that nothing for farmers without farmers and empowering Canadian agriculture to make sure that we're protecting farmer mental health is what guides us every day.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: All right, excellent. I didn't ask you to prepare any statistics, but is there anything in your research or statistically that. I don't even know what question to ask here really on statistics, but maybe you have something that do want to shed some light on.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: I do, yeah. So again, at the University of Guelph, Dr. Jones and her lab, we, we work together to do a national survey. Every five years she has conducted this survey. So there's been two so far and another one coming up. It'll be going in the, in January again, so we'll have a third cycle. And what we looked at there was depression, anxiety, chronic stress, drug and alcohol use, suicidality. And what we ended up finding in this cross sectional survey, so a snapshot in time was that farmers were experiencing negative mental health outcomes at a prevalence that was significantly higher than the general population in Canada. It was alarming. Over 3/4 of farmers reported that they had high chronic stress. And that's not just them saying, oh, do you have high stress? Yes or no. The clinical screening tools that we're using for depression and anxiety and chronic stress, in all of those categories, farmers are scoring significantly worse than the general population. That was true in 2015. 16. That was true in 2020, 2021. And I'm hoping we'll start to make some inroads now that there's more services that are becoming available. And in the previous survey, which was 2020, 2021, fall, winter, it showed that over the amount of farmers that were experiencing suicidal ideation was over double the general population. Extremely concerning. We can't, with a survey like that, look at suicide rates. How many people are dying by suicide? We can't look at that with that type of data, but we can look at things like, have you thought about ending your life over the last 12 months? Have you felt like your life wasn't worth living over the last 12 months or in your lifetime? And both lifetime and previous year, suicidal ideation was significantly higher for farmers. And that is super concerning.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that, that makes me Speechless.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: In, in a sense it is, it is very concerning. And if, sorry, I do have a bit. I get a little nerdy around statistics. But the other, the other piece that I think is really important was the lack of willingness to help for a mental health struggle. So we have folks who are struggling significantly more than the general population and they are significantly less willing to seek help. So a lot of the work I did throughout my PhD was looking at why, why do people not want to seek help and what can we do about it? Which is how CCAW came into being. It was the direct result of that research. So people talked about, well, I can't afford to go seek help.
I don't want to seek help in town because someone's going to see my truck and I don't want anyone knowing that I'm struggling. I don't have time to seek help. I have to be on the field or I have to be in the barn. It is not something that should be a priority. I should be able to just pull up my boots and keep going. This shouldn't be a problem for me.
We have slowly been breaking down those barriers one by one, as much as we can so that people have accessible services that they want to seek help from.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: I, yeah, I've gone through my own journey, my own mental health journey as well. And you know, I, I definitely resonate with a few of these. Like the affordability is an interesting one out there because it is, you know, in my experience, hundreds of dollars for, for an appointment. The other thing too is the availability.
And so I was going through some stuff and I was reaching out to some organizations and most of them had a four to six week wait. And you know, that, that, to me that is kind of a crazy idea to think that four to six weeks is the timeline to seek, you know, some, some help in that way, which again makes the crisis line and some of these resources that much more important because I don't see that slowing down much in, in just the general space, not ag specific, but in that general space.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Yeah, you're exactly right. That is definitely the experience of a lot of folks that we have spoken to. And like you said, I think that really highlights the need for more work like this and more advocacy to pressure some organizations or to pressure maybe is the wrong word. But to let folks know and organizations know, governments know, you have to be funding some help and some supports for these farmers. We need them to be farmers. We need them not to leave farming.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: Yeah. The other thing I wrote down here was self care and self care is also something that I struggle with. And when I chat with farmers across the prairies, you know, I struggle to inspire them to just spend time in their office, you know, like dedicate a couple hours a week in the office just working on their crop marketing plan and their farm business decisions. Self care, when you're busy, it just doesn't happen. And it's also, it almost to me, it's something that I have to actively like practice like that. It's okay to spend some time this week on, on self care. It's okay, I need a haircut, it's okay to go and take an hour and go get a haircut. It's okay to, to go and whatever, whatever it is for you to go and have that time to yourself, that self care. And it's just something that, you know, for the last number of generations, again, spending time in the office is hard enough. Spending time on yourself every week or month or whatever it may be, it feels almost impossible at times.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: But I can't stress it enough.
Absolutely. And I think self care looks so different for everyone.
Self care for you might look really different than it does for me. And just even spending a little bit of time, even while you're working, thinking about what would bring you just a little bit of peace, what self care thing, what could you do? What could it be? Five minutes to start and what could you do just to be able to take a deep breath and sit down or have a hot cup of coffee. But another thing we heard a lot when we were doing some of our research or I continue to hear is farmers tend to use their stress as a badge of honor. They tend to talk about, oh, I haven't taken a break in X number of weeks or months, or I work this many hours a day and it's kind of touted as this, like, look at how hard I'm working for you.
And that to me is a massive red flag. Or a massive like, okay, you need to be able to do something to take a break or you're going to burn out. And I think, yeah, traditionally that's been something that has been touted as, you know, that's powerful. You're a great farmer, you put all this effort in, you're doing a good job. And I'm here to say we need to take a moment to pause. It can look different for everybody. It could be sitting in your office working on your, you know, emergency preparedness plan. Maybe that's going to set you up for future success. And that can be your Self care but for someone else, maybe it's leaving the farm and going to watch a baseball game that your kid plays, maybe that's your self care but just taking a moment to figure out what it could be and actually doing it.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Not that I want to keep throwing my own personal experiences in here and I know it's different for everybody but this is how this kind of helps me relate a little bit. But I went through a time in my life where I was working seven days a week and working all day and excited to do it, getting up, excited to work each and every day and did that for years, years and years, every day getting up and I through some other circumstances I had to take some time away. I ended part of my career and I had a non compete so I had to stop working.
And that was one of the hardest moments of my life was going from doing something you love and working every day to all of a sudden stopping that and not having, not knowing what to do.
I didn't have any hobbies, I didn't have anything to look forward to from a self care perspective.
Like I kind of lost myself when I didn't have my work. I lost myself and coming out of that for three, four, six months was extremely numbing and dark.
And I have young kids at home, I have lots of stuff to do, I have a vibrant family, lots of things to look forward to but yet coming off of that and having to relearn and refocus and you know, I spent a lot of time getting help and trying to figure out what is wrong with me. Like what did I, I was loving what I was doing but why am I feeling like this? And I not to say that this would be the same for the farmers out there but changing that rhythm, having support in place to help you get that self care or start that plan or it's important because it can really change your, your life and your how you're feeling coming off that. So I don't know if that relates or not. Brianna.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: I thought it, it definitely it was my experience anyway.
[00:27:56] Speaker B: So yeah, yeah. And I want to highlight a couple of things that you said there that for me are powerful. You were able to reach out for supports in those times you had supports in place and still there were, there were things that you were struggling with. So like that is all perfectly normal and it is perfectly normal to have waxes and wains of your mental health. That's just being a human. So knowing where to reach out when some of that waning happens is what's really, really important there. And then having somebody on the other end of that support who is, who has an understanding of what you do or what a farmer does so that they don't make self care suggestions that are frankly ridiculous or you know, something that just really misses the mark, it can really turn a person off from seeking help again. So it just, I wanted to bring it back a little bit to the significance of having CALP trained or farm informed folks who are on the supporting end. Because if you reach out when you're like, hey, I don't even know why I'm struggling, but I am. And they're like, you know what, Mr. Dairy Farmer, why don't you go take four weeks off work, you should take a stress leave. It's not helpful. That's not a helpful thing to say. I think I just wanted to bring it back to that too is why it was so important to us to make sure that these services are ready so that we're not giving people advice that they never want to call back again.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: I want to segue this to. You know, we've talked about the crisis line here a few times. But you know, part of my plan and the way it worked for my life was doing stuff over zoom.
Having that regular appointment was also important for me at the time.
Beyond the crisis line.
Can we just spend a moment just talking about what else? What, what else is there? What, what other resources or guides are there outside of the crisis line?
[00:30:00] Speaker B: Mm. So this really depends on where you are in the country.
So I would encourage people to reach out to us if they have questions about that they can ask if they call the crisis line. The folks on the crisis line have a list of every farm informed resource based on their area. So say someone from. I'm in Manitoba. So for example, someone in Manitoba calls the crisis line and then they're looking for day to day supports that could be phone virtual or in person. They then get the information from our crisis line for the Manitoba Farmer Wellness Program that has kelp trained folks who can deliver services on a day to day basis. Now we're working on building those partnerships in every single province. So we don't have them all up and running yet, but they do have contact information for every farm informed service across the country.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: Okay, excellent. I wanted to just talk a bit about maybe some, maybe it's some skills or, or things like that, but I've got a few questions here. Just diving into signs and, and myths and stuff like that. Yeah, I wanted to just talk about some practical stuff so you know, what are the signs that we often miss in our. In ourselves or maybe in others?
[00:31:22] Speaker B: So I'm going to start by saying I think it'd be great to take an in the know to be able to really get into these because this will be really brief and obviously there's a lot more that goes into teaching this stuff. But I think some signs that you might be able to recognize in yourself is what, what's your, where are your shoulders and, and how's your tension? That's one sign that you're stress might be ratcheting up. Are you feeling really tight in your chest and shoulders?
Another sign is are you really, really snippy with the people you work with? Are you really, really quick to anger? Are you frustrated by things that normally you'd be able to let roll off your back?
That can be a sign that maybe it's time to figure out how to take a quick break. Are you snippy with your kids? For example? I have young kids. When my stress ratchets up, I get short with them and they notice. They notice it. So those are just some really quick things that you could notice in yourself or like, are you sleeping? Is your sleep trash? Are you not sleeping well?
That can be a sign and a symptom. Trying to prioritize some sleep could help. Maybe it's short sleep, but is it good sleep?
Those are some individual ones. And then when you're talking about others, I think some things that we notice or that farmers talked about noticing was what does the barn look like? You know, when you go, say you go to your neighbor's place, like, you know, like you normally do, you're just checking in, going, going into the barn and things look messier than normal. They look different, they just don't look the way that they normally do. That can be a sign that anxieties are high or there's a mental health struggle going on. When someone who generally comes to small group meetings, whether it's a commodity group meeting or they're part of some sort of organization, your community, and they're either quiet at those meetings and they're not normally, or they don't come, that can be a sign that something, something might be going on or there might be a struggle happening. And I think being able to check in on those folks just to give them a phone call or to talk about what's going on, to ask the questions again, if that's something that makes you. I want to mind my own business. Taken in the know, go take that course it will help you give you even just the words to say so that you feel a little more comfortable because those are the moments where you can make a huge difference in someone's life just by asking a question. So those are, those are a few examples. And like I said, a mental health literacy training can really get into the weeds of that for you and for anyone who wants to take it. And it can be immensely empowering just to know you're ready just to add.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: To some of the things you said there. Those are fantastic. But you know, if farmers, is there a spot where you would direct them to if you know, if they're not ready to talk or looking for that starting point, like if someone's listening to the podcast today and saying, you know, I'm not ready to talk. But I, I, I'm going to take a moment here just to check out this resource. Is there a starting point we could direct them to?
[00:34:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I think a starting point. Hmm, that's a great question because a lot of, a lot of the starting points include reaching out.
So I think something you could do is there's a lot of online resources that people could go to on our website it would direct you to some resources or like downloadable self care resources. I know do more egg has some downloadable resources or connections to more community based programs rather than like formal evidence based programs that if people want to self guide through some of that, I think that is an option. I do think reaching, reaching out to someone in the industry to make sure that those resources are vetted or you know, farm tailored is great, but at least vetted and appropriate would be good.
And then I think the other thing is as a person who you know, say you're talking to a family member who is struggling, they're like I'm not ready to reach out yet. I would encourage you as the person who asked that question to reach out and say, hey, my family member is struggling. They're not ready to reach out yet. How can I encourage them or what can I do to help them in the interim? And then a person would be able to guide you even more in a fulsome way.
[00:36:06] Speaker A: So you'd say that individual could phone the, the crisis 100%.
[00:36:11] Speaker B: Yes. So we, we receive calls from partners, kids, parents. You are, you can call on behalf of someone else.
[00:36:20] Speaker A: Okay, that's great to know. And folks for the website it is c a w.ca and we will have it in the show notes as well and on our social media. So that is the site to grab some of those Resources.
Okay.
Is there a myth that you'd love to kind of bust here about mental health and agriculture?
[00:36:45] Speaker B: There are several. I think the biggest myth I would like to bust is that asking someone about their mental health will make their mental health worse. I think that that is a huge myth and a huge barrier to folks asking people about how they're doing. You. You will not make someone's mental health worse by inquiring about how they're doing. So please, if you see any of the little things we talked about in any of your friends or family or anyone in the industry, ask them about it, ask how they're doing, and know that you can call the crisis line should you need to, as a support. I think that's the biggest one. I think another one is when farmers say, I can handle this on my own. I don't need to reach out for help. I think that's a myth that needs to be busted. Mental health struggles aren't meant to experience alone. Please reach out for help. If you are feeling the weight of a mental health struggle, please reach out for help, because there are supports there for you that can help you see through some of these things in a way that you won't be able to see when you're sitting in it.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: The power of a question and the power of a conversation. My wife and I experienced a loss in 2019, and when folks would, you know, interact with us and when they would ask that second question or they.
I don't know how to say it, but they would ask a slightly different question than what most people were asking and get to that next layer in a conversation and how powerful that was for us just to just kind of lifted a little bit of weight off our shoulders. It felt like at the time. And I know that's one thing I try to practice myself is figuring out that little question that's not generic. That's, you know, how you doing? Like, trying to get around that to something a little bit different that makes somebody think and get to that second layer of a conversation, because it. We all, you know, put up our defenses. We have that wall. We have those canned answers that just automatically flow out. But having that just spinning the question a little bit just to get down to that next layer, it's, to me, is very, very powerful.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: So absolutely. I actually. One other myth. Sorry, I thought of one more that we hear a lot, is if I'm struggling mentally, it means I'm a bad farmer. That's a myth that we also need to just completely bust, because that is so damaging to someone who is experiencing a mental health struggle. And it really is a barrier to reaching out for help. So if someone is experiencing mental health struggle, it has nothing to do with their quality of work. It has nothing to do with them being a good or a bad farmer.
[00:39:52] Speaker A: I would add to that too. When you can have that self care plan, whatever that is, when we get to that point where you're speaking to somebody and making a plan and getting tactics and resources to use.
I know for me some of it was breathing techniques and there was a couple of books that I read as part of my self care as well.
But how you feel working on that and how that can contribute to your business, to you as a person in your business as well.
Honestly, it's almost the opposite where if you, you know, you get some of this going in the right track and the other stuff gets sharper and easier and it pays dividends on the operation as well. So.
[00:40:49] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:40:50] Speaker A: I want to ask this one, you know, can stress actually impact farm decisions? The farmers are making thousands of decisions every year. In your opinion, can stress have an impact on those?
[00:41:04] Speaker B: Yes, and not just in my opinion. There's a good body of research that shows that stress does impact decision making.
And when you think about stress and decision making in farming, some of those decisions that one of those 1,000 decisions that you make every day, they can be very costly. If you make the wrong decision, whether it's a decision about livestock or a decision about buying something, it can be detrimental to your business. If your mental health is not. If you're not in a good space mentally and you're making these decisions while your stress is up here and your shoulders are up here and there's so much blur and fuzziness happening because of a mental health struggle, those decisions may not be, and I would say likely not be clear decisions and they can be extremely detrimental to your business.
So making sure that you are reaching out for help again just helps with your business.
[00:42:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Like the old thing in crop marketing is when prices, you know, crash and stress goes up, there's a lot of selling that happens. And so it just time and time again. We saw it again a couple weeks ago, we had a crash. We had a. The panic in the market, stress levels up and, and it, it's just something that happens all, you know, often and. Yeah. Anyways.
[00:42:34] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. And it can be associated with farm injury as well. So when you're making bad decisions, it can lead to injury and when you're stressed, it can lead to injury. So it just, it's. Yeah, it's not good.
[00:42:47] Speaker A: All right, Brianna, I, I appreciate all your perspectives today and spending time with us here. Once again, this episode is super close to me. My brother in law, we lost him to suicide in 2011.
I lost a consulting client to suicide. I think about growing up in rural Saskatchewan and the youth that we lost to suicide as well.
And it's something that impacts all of us. It. If you're farming across the prairies, across this country, growing up in rural communities, it is a real thing.
So in honor of those experiences and those individuals, the what the Futures podcast is doing kind of a neat thing. I've been known, getting known for my hats here. Not this one, not my fresh, tragically hip hat. But I went to Hawaii a couple years ago and found this great organization that just designs these phenomenal hats. Anyways, we're doing a hat contest. It runs here till April 22nd. And what we're asking listeners to do, it could be you, it could be your kids, your grandkids. If you're in a school, a teacher. Please go to the website ryandani ca. You can find the details there. Click on around the Table with Ryan under contest and giveaways, you can download the form. It's just a hat that you design. We're going to, we're going to announce a winner. We're going to take all the designs, announce a winner on May 1, and then off to production they go. We'll have them ready for Egg in Motion, which is mid July. We're going to be at the UPL booth. Brianna and her team are gonna be hanging out with us as well. And With a minimum $30 donation, you can get your hat or get one of these original hats designed by somebody here across the prairies. And all proceeds are gonna go to the ccaw. So excited about that. Again, folks. Deadline's coming up here in just a couple of weeks. And if you're a corporation and you wanna do a corporate buy, we're definitely open to that as well. All proceeds going to the ccaw. And we are going to be distributing these at Egg in Motion. So, Brianna, thanks again for coming on board here. I appreciate your time and your expertise.
Anything else you want to close with today?
[00:45:20] Speaker B: No, I want to thank you for having me on and thanks for highlighting what an important part of farming mental health is. I just wanted to do a quick shout out back to you. Thanks for giving us some voice here to talk about the programming and to talk about some of your own experiences. I appreciate that. And I just want to say again that if you are struggling, if you know someone or love someone in farming that's struggling, please reach out for help. It is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for free. Call 1-866-F Farms-01, and you are not alone.
[00:45:57] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Brianna. Let's do this again real soon.
[00:46:00] Speaker B: Absolutely. Thank.
