Lloyd Pletz knows all about stress.
The Saskatchewan farmer was forced to sell some implements this spring to help pay bills.
Spring rains delayed his seeding and he now worries that his crops will be killed by an early frost.
His application for welfare last March was rejected. And he won’t qualify for the governments’ farm safety nets.
There were times, he said, when he didn’t have the money to buy bread and milk.
“What’s been really stressful for me was trying to decide whether to buy groceries or to pay a bill,” said Pletz, who farms near Balcarres, Sask.
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He copes by supporting farmer protests and by speaking out about the farm crisis. He expects that crisis to deepen due to the gloomy outlook for grain prices.
“It’s just turned into one big social problem,” Pletz said, referring to the marital breakups and farm foreclosures he sees in his area.
The amount of tension and stress appears to be rising on farms and in farm communities where rains delayed seeding this spring.
Sheryl Hayne-Cavers, an outreach worker for the Anxiety Disorders Association of Manitoba, said the number of queries from rural areas has skyrocketed in her province’s Westman region.
People are worried about their finances, their health and family relationships. And there’s frustration about being at the mercy of the weather and world grain prices.
“It’s working its way up from the farmer all the way to the businesses that are not doing well.”
Fears about the farm crisis go beyond individual farms and businesses, said Ngaire Abernethy, a disaster relief worker for the South Westman Regional Health Authority.
People are looking down the road at what effects the crisis could have on their community. They worry the loss of farm families and businesses could lead to other losses such as a school or a community centre that relies on local support.
“There’s a lot of real fear about those kinds of things.”
The topic of farm safety nets also surfaces among those seeking support to cope with stress and worry. More than 60 calls to the Saskatchewan Farm Stress Line touched on that issue during April, May and June.
Close to 900 calls were made to the farm stress line during the first six months of this year, said Ken Imhoff, who manages the service. The majority of calls were prompted by financial issues or uncertainty about support from the Agricultural Income Disaster Assistance program.
“There’s certainly a level of frustration there, to the point of being very angry or very depressed,” said Imhoff.
Hayne-Cavers believes the fallout from this spring’s flooding in western Manitoba and southern Saskat-chewan has only started to hit home. It will become worse later in the year, she said, once farmers and communities start to realize its full effect.
“This is the calm before the storm as far as our organization is concerned.”
