By Tiffany Goodwein

Drought conditions having impact on farmers’ mental health, says advocacy group

Aug 5, 2021 | 10:13 AM

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. — Harold Fieldberg stands on land that once grew organic hemp. This time of year it is supposed to be lush and green, but much of his dryland crop has been ruined by drought.

For Fieldberg and many other farmers, the drought is yet another difficult challenge on top of a rough couple of years.

“It has a severe effect on the farm family because the stress goes down from me to my wife to my family to my son who is working on the farm, my grandson also works on the farm here. And we are always short on money. We are always living on next year’s money, and with a drought like this and we have had hail, the past two years, we sort of live off crop insurance, and crop insurance is quite difficult for agriculture,” he said.

To make ends meet, Fieldberg, a fifth-generation farmer, has had to dig into his old-age savings and he has had to sell off equipment and transition to a feed-lot.

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“The land itself is not paying for itself and so we have to supplement it with some extra work,” he said.

Fieldberg said the ongoing weather challenges of farming and the economics have made the profession even more difficult to make a profit due to the high expenses every year. His power bill alone is $50,000 a year.

According to the latest Alberta Crop report, only 20 per cent of crops are rated as good or excellent. That’s in comparison to the average 71 percent.

Dryland crops aren’t the only crops to be impacted by drought. Over at Hatview Dairy, they are also seeing an impact.

“We are running out of irrigation water. We are only allocated 16 inches so it does affect us on some of our cropping,” said Keith Weiss.

Corn and alfalfa, grown to feed the cows, require 25 inches of irrigation, according to Weiss. Like many farmers some of their land has been written off due to their crops being baked by drought. Weiss is now hoping for government support.

With high operating costs and many crops cooked, that’s having a major impact on farmers’ mental health, according to Do More Agriculture, an advocacy group for farmers.

“Farmers do experience extreme amounts of stress due to a lack of supports on any good given year. But this year in combination with the extreme drought that we are experiencing is adding pressure to our producers,” said executive director Adelle Stewart.

The organization says farmers are more likely to experience mental health issues compared to other professions. According to Stewart, lack of access to resources, isolation and the cultural narrative of farming often prevents farmers from reaching out for help.

“You do need a high degree of resiliency to be in this industry but it doesn’t mean that we are immune to stress, depression, and those types of thoughts,” she said.

“The expectation that we can just continue to ranch through it, would be a false notion. We really need to change that topic, that culture of mental health, and understand that we are human, have human emotions, ” Stewart added.

Fieldberg said he knows of at least three farmers who have committed suicide.

“You can’t really say it was related but you can’t really say it is not related either, because it is all related to what you are doing as a lifestyle,” he said, noting the pandemic has taken away a lot of the social aspects of agriculture.

The Do More Agriculture Foundation provides peer-to-peer sessions that are facilitated with a mental health professional that has lived experience in agriculture. A national helpline is also in the works to connect farmers in crisis with someone who can help. A link to donate to the helpline can be found here.