Glacier FarmMedia – The Canadian Centre for Agricultural Wellbeing has launched its third National Survey of Farmer and Rancher Mental Health in Canada.
The survey invites farmers and ranchers across all commodities and regions in Canada to share their experiences with stress, anxiety, depression, burnout, resilience, and coping mechanisms. It’s conducted in partnership with the University of Guelph.
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“Strong participation helps ensure that future research, programs, and policy decisions are informed by the real experiences of farmers and ranchers,” the centre said in a news release.
WHY IT MATTERS: The survey will improve understanding of the current state of mental health in agriculture and build on the previous national surveys from 2016 and 2021.
In 2021, the showed that the COVID-19 pandemic had worsened existing issues of high stress, anxiety, and burnout among farmers and ranchers, with women reporting poorer mental health than men across all measures except alcohol use.
“Both women and men who farm scored worse than the general population, but the women scored even worse,” said Briana Hagen, the centre’s and lead scientist, told Farmtario in November 2022. “Given the role of women in farming, this data highlights a pretty serious problem that we have to start looking into.”
Suicidal ideation was twice as high in farmers as in the general population said University of Guelph researcher Dr. Andria Jones in a 2022 article from the university. Jones led the research that year.
She also noted that one in four participants reported having thought their life wasn’t worth living, wishing they were dead, or having thoughts of taking their own life in the 12 months leading up to the survey.
