Funds raised by HereForFarmers will be used to operate a farm stress line to provide counselling and referral services
A crowd sourcing campaign is raising money and awareness for the plight of farmers living with mental illness — one T-shirt at a time.
“Our campaign is aimed at bringing awareness to the stress that farmers undergo every year and how it affects their mental health,” said Kim Keller, co-founder of Farm At Hand.
The Vancouver company developed a farm management tool that is free to farmers and available as a smartphone and tablet app and on the web.
Keller said the rate of farmer suicides is staggering while the topic of mental health remains mostly silent within rural communities. She said suicide rates among farmers are the highest in comparison to other professions.
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“In the United Kingdom, one farmer commits suicide every week, France it’s once every two days and in North America the suicide rate is almost twice that of the general population,” said Keller.
The HereForFarmers crowd-funding campaign launched Feb. 19 on Indiegogo and will run until April 5. T-shirts cost $22 and are available in three themes: steak, beer and bread.
The original goal was to raise $6,500 in T-shirt sales so that $1,500 could be donated to a farm stress line operated by Mobile Crisis after material and shipping costs and other fees. However, the campaign has already raised almost $9,000.
“We want to keep the momentum and awareness going,” said Keller.
Corporate sponsors include FBC, a tax advisory company, which has bought 50 shirts and will be donating $2 per T-shirt up to a maximum of $1000. Redhead Equipment and FarmLink Marketing Solutions are also buying a minimum of 50 shirts.
Keller said she knows first-hand how stress can affect farmers, the family and community.
She grew up on a farm in northeastern Saskatchewan and returns each year to help her parents and brother with seeding and harvest.
She remembers watching helplessly during the big windstorm of 2012, which blew canola swaths off many prairie fields and into nearby ditches and sloughs.
“You’ve put all of your money, all your time in that crop and in the matter of 12 hours it’s gone. There’s nothing you can do to stop it and your thinking, ‘how am I going to pay these bills, how am I going to farm next year, what am I going to do,’ ” she said.
“You see a hailstorm come through in July or August and wipe out the crop. It’s mentally and emotionally taxing and financially devastating to see that happen and watch your family go through it, or even go through it myself.”
Keller said she hopes the campaign will raise awareness of farm stress.
“We’re trying to educate the public about, ‘this is what your farmer is going through every day to get food unto your plate,’ ” she said.
“It’s OK to talk about farm anxiety, depression and anything else that might be affecting farmers’ mental health and that there are resources out there to help them, like the farm stress line.”
She also wants to help Mobile Crisis, a non-profit agency that provides crisis intervention through a confidential phone line. Professionals trained on how to deal with mental health issues provide farmers with counseling, support, information and referral services.
The number is 800-667-4442.
- For more information, visit www.indiegogo.com/projects/here-for-farmers3.
