To achieve such growth and success requires affirmative support and the existence of business conditions that will motivate farmers to continue with their lifestyle.
My name is Beth Connery. I'm chair of the Canadian Horticultural Council's labour committee, and I would like to share with you some of my experience.
These people operate under incredible stressors. Financial pressures, labour shortages, reduced competitiveness, and weather challenges are all being faced on a daily basis. Labour, in particular, is an ongoing issue for horticultural producers. We rely heavily on the seasonal agricultural worker program to provide needed employees for planting, harvesting and packing our produce. This past year, many employers had difficulty sourcing their employees in a timely fashion. This meant that there were crops not sown or transplanted, and other crops that were ready out in the field with no one to harvest them. We work with very thin margins, and starting a crop year with a loss makes it very hard to work long hours for the rest of the year in the hopes of covering that loss and making even a marginal profit.
Farmers, like most people, have a variety of coping mechanisms and reactions to stress, anxiety and depression. They run the gamut from keeping busy—at anything—to avoidance and procrastination. Many tasks are done alone, increasing a sense of isolation. Even those who have dealt with depression in the past can be caught unawares by this insidious disease.
This past spring and summer saw drought-like conditions in Manitoba. A friend thought they were dealing with the stress fairly well—talking with friends, exercising, practising self-care—all the usual recommendations they had learned when dealing with depression previously. Then came the first significant rainfall of the season, and they realized that a load had been lifted off their shoulders. The smiles came more readily, and they felt better.
Farming organizations are becoming more concerned with the mental health issues their members are facing, and most, if not all, are providing links to resources in their communications. Social media campaigns are actively promoting the information and resources. The Do More Agriculture Foundation has been formed, and the University of Guelph is developing resources as a result of the mental health survey many of us participated in.
As a farming family, we are very cognizant of the pressures and results of anxiety and depression. In June 2012, we became suicide-loss survivors when my husband died of depression. His brother and business partner had died of a heart attack six months previously, and he was under increased pressure to do both jobs. We had dealt with his depression before, but the added pressure was finally too much for my husband.
In my opinion, these people are not choosing to leave their families, nor are they avoiding the problems they are facing. They are choosing to end the pain they are living with. This is not something I can understand, because I have never had the feelings they obviously do, but we are left to pick up the pieces and move forward as well as we can.
We have had many family and one-on-one conversations about the importance of mental health. We have had access to and used counsellors on various occasions, both as a family and individually. One of us has called the rural help line to talk when they needed it. It was considered to be a positive experience because they felt forward motion when counselling sessions were set up for them.
The downfall of some of these systems is their lack of familiarity with the farming community when we finally see a counsellor. For most farmers, farmer is what they are; it is not what they do. The distinction can be very important when dealing with emotions and a new path forward.
There are immense pressures on farm families today, and we want to rise to the challenge, but we need help in dealing with the issues that are within the control of regulators. Things like weather we have no control over. For me personally, right now, it's been raining in Manitoba—finally—for the last month, but that means that I have a million dollars' worth of carrots sitting out in the field and no way of getting them in. That is going to crater anybody's business plan.
Government needs to enable us, not hobble us. We are proud to produce safe and nutritious food for our families and consumers to eat. We believe we are good stewards of our lands and plan to pass our farm businesses down to succeeding generations as they were passed on to us. However, the current pressures can make us look at our children and wonder if we really want to put them through what we are experiencing.
Again, thank you very much for this opportunity. I would welcome any questions for follow-up.