The Manitoba Farmer Wellness Program provides counselling services specific to farmers, their families and employees
Glacier FarmMedia – The Manitoba Farmer Wellness Program is now a registered charity recognized by the Canada Revenue Agency.
Founded in October 2021, the program provides up to nine confidential counselling sessions per year to farmers, their families and farm employees. Sessions are delivered by professional counsellors with agricultural backgrounds. The program’s counselling services began last spring.
It’s an exciting step forward for the program, said program chair Marcel Hacault in a press release.
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“It not only strengthens our accountability but also expands our ability to raise funds and better serve Manitoba’s farming community. We are excited about the new opportunities this brings and deeply grateful for the continued support of our community.”
With the new status, the program can issue tax receipts for eligible donations and apply for funding and grants that require a registered charity designation. It also helps legitimize the program, said chief administrative officer Gerry Friesen.
“That just opens some more doors for us,” he said. “I think (this) puts more word out there, builds more awareness and reduces stigma more.”
Being part of the program and its assistance to the farm community is “completely and totally overwhelming,” he added. “When this first started … just over three years ago … we were looking at this very simplistically. We were going to raise some funds, and we were going to get some counsellors and boom, now we’re providing this service.”
He described support from donors as nothing short of incredible.
“I can’t say enough about it. We have four awesome counsellors, and so the uptake is always increasing. And then, earlier this year, the government stepped up.”
The program benefited from a surprise $450,000 announcement, made during Ag Days in Brandon in January 2024. That funding allowed the program to offer nine sponsored sessions, up from six it was previously offering.
According to Statistics Canada, more than five million Canadians experienced a mood, anxiety or substance use disorder in 2022, and the prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders has increased over the past decade. Despite this, only about half of Canadians with a mental disorder receive support.
For farmers, mental health issues roared into the limelight in recent years, particularly after a University of Guelph report in 2016 found 45 per cent of farmer respondents to a survey were suffering from high stress, 58 had some level of anxiety and 35 met the standards for depression. A 2021 follow up by the same team reported that one in four responding farmers had experienced suicidal thoughts.
Friesen, who has spoken publicly and published a book on his own mental health challenges, noted the effect of high stress on relationships.
“It affects absolutely everything – your farm business management decisions, everything in life is affected by that. So when we can start healing, when we can start talking to others about mental health … when we talk to each other, we learn from each other.”
The Manitoba Farmer Wellness Program is built to be farmer-centric.
“Agriculture is the backbone of this country, so really, everything comes down to a common denominator, and that’s our farmers, their families and employees. We need to make sure that they are as healthy as they can be,” Friesen said.
Heading into the New Year, he wants to raise the profile of the program.
“I want absolutely every farmer, every farm family and every farm employee in Manitoba to be aware of this program,” he said. “I want to make sure that people feel comfortable in reaching out when they need help. And if we can do that, we can grow the program and we can increase the mental well-being of our agricultural community, and that’s really the bottom line.”
