A farm where the weeds are getting out of control, the yard’s a mess or the livestock are looking bad could be red flags for farmers in distress.Mental health experts are encouraging farmers to check on neighbours if something seems odd, because thousands of farmers across the Prairies are feeling stressed and some might be getting pushed into depression and paralysis.“Men don’t know how to ask for help,” said Gerry Friesen, a Manitoba farm debt mediator and self-described “recovering hog producer.”“You’re trained to not ask for help, so you might start relying on things that are futile.”Farming is a stressful business, but experts say this year may see many farmers facing the similar extreme stress factors as hog farmers, who have just come through three years of severe losses.This year, millions of acres of cropland won’t be seeded due to excessive wetness, and thousands of farmers will be significantly affected.This will raise the stress levels and could push vulnerable producers into depression.Depression can become a dangerous downward spiral, experts say, because its effects tend to exacerbate the conditions that helped provoke it.“Typically you see a real increase in fatigue, not having any energy, a real lack of motivation,” said Kim Moffat, a counsellor with Manitoba’s Farm and Rural Stress Line.“They tend to have a real feeling of hopelessness.”This can lead to virtual paralysis, in which a producer finds he can’t get out of bed to do the chores. For a farmer, this might mean he doesn’t get on top of weed control. For a livestock producer, it might mean he can’t get out to feed the animals.Each year, at least one case of a producer neglecting animals and allowing them to starve is discovered, and usually it is reported as a case of animal abuse.But veterinary experts say these incidents often involve a producer facing psychological problems that have not been addressed and few recognize the underlying cause.Moffat said farmers should take notice if they see unusual crop or livestock production problems developing on their neighbours’ farms because they can be symptoms of a producer struggling.Sometimes it will simply be a production problem, such as not having enough money for chemical weed control or to find affordable feed. But the only way to see if the producer needs help is to ask.“Ask how they’re doing,” said Moffat. “Do so in a non-judgmental way, so that they feel safe talking to you.”That’s what worked for Friesen when his hog farm was struggling. A neighbour came over and asked him how he was.“It opened up the floodgates for me,” said Friesen, who credits the neighbour with allowing him to take the first steps out of depression.“Nine times out of 10, the person who is going through this is looking for someone to talk to.”Both Moffat and Friesen said friends and neighbours don’t need to have concrete solutions to a farmer’s problems.“You don’t have to have any answers. You just need to have the ability to approach them and start asking the questions,” said Friesen.Moffat agreed.“Don’t jump in with advice right away. That’s what we tend to do. But just be a really good listener and don’t think you can solve their problems all at one time.”
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