Manitoba Farmer Wellness Program to expand mental health support services

The Manitoba Farmer Wellness Program is designed to help bridge the gap to mental health services for the agriculture industry.

The program launched in the fall of 2021 helps provide six, one on one counselling sessions free of charge for farmers and their families with professional counselors who have a background in agriculture.

Chair Marcel Hacault says starting January 1st the program will also be available to farm workers.

"Quite a few farmers said that their workers are almost an extension of their family and they would like to see their workers to be able to use that service too. We talked about it as a board and said really our goal is to provide mental wellness for Manitoba farm families and their workers too. That's what we did. We're going to open it up and hopefully, more people will be going through that process with somebody to help them."          

He says farm businesses traditionally lack dedicated health and wellness programs for employees, yet the stress of the job is real and we want to change that narrative.

" We want to change that narrative emphasizing the importance of acknowledging and valuing the well-being of all farm workers."

While the program is confidential they have had positive feedback from anonymous producers who have used the program saying it helped when they were going through a challenging time.

He points out that as farmers when a piece of equipment is broken, we take it in to get repairs. Why wouldn't we do that for ourselves and our family?

Hacault notes they are always looking at improving the program to better meet producer needs.

"We're talking to the government to see if we can expand the service. We're talking to other groups across Canada to see if we can network or help cover each other. We're looking to improve it and make sure it's as easy as possible for farmers, their families, and their workers to access ."