Cleverness in the workshop is often all that is needed to keep an
injured person farming.
Murray McWilliams, a speaker at a conference on disability issues, lost
his right leg on a Regina district farm when he was four. He said when
he needed an adaptation to do his work on the farm, “Dad and I got our
heads together … and just did it.”
McWilliams said by talking together a family will usually find the
solutions to mobility problems. If a person can’t do the physical
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labour, agriculture also needs managers and planners who use their
brains and computers to farm.
Farming with a disability is easier today because of technology. But
McWilliams said there are still personal and people issues to work out.
“Especially with a disability that people can see, it affects how they
deal with you,” said McWilliams, who props himself on a cane, using it
as a second leg to walk.
Even if a person isn’t injured, he may be slowing down because of
arthritis or a heart condition. Yet getting farmers to acknowledge this
is difficult, he said. The only effective way to get people to change
is through awareness, listening to speakers like himself or through
advertising, “anything to keep it in peoples’ faces.”
McWilliams left the farm in 1970, not because of his disability, but
because of economics. He works for Sask Energy and volunteers as a
speaker for the Saskatchewan Safety Council.
