The third week of March each year is dedicated as Farm Safety Week. Before going out to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day where everyone enjoys a good time and forgets their troubles for a while, we decide how we are going to get home safe. Unfortunately, when farm accidents or even deaths caused by farm accidents happen to a farmer, one of the family or an employee, just didn’t take that extra few seconds to think before getting into an eventual dangerous or tragic situation. Failure to take that extra second to think before moving has been the main reason that farming has been the most dangerous profession in Canada.
A silent enemy has been slowly but surely creeping into all our lives (not just farmers), increasingly over the past few years.

Stress, leading to mental health problems and in some cases eventually suicide. This can start as early as in kindergarten when some kids seem to always be the leader, while there is sometimes another child who is always the last to be picked. In school there again are leaders while others are pushed by teachers and parents and sometimes even bullied by other students.
A student who was classed as autistic by teachers later became a community leader or a doctor of psychology because their thought process was different from anyone else.
Some other students who were extremely stressed and not noticed by teachers, parents or other peers eventually ended their own life because they couldn’t see any other solution.
Today’s fast paced world with social media, expectations that are sometimes impossible to meet, choices to make about everything from the food we eat, to how expensive a house we buy; all critiqued by family, spouse or friends can lead to stress that some cannot handle.
In agriculture, grain farmers can spend a million dollars putting a crop in the ground in the spring and by fall when it is harvested, the price could drop by 40 per cent. Many animals from birth to being productive can take two years and export trade deals can cause domestic markets to change from fair to disastrous and change a farm from being profitable to bankrupt. In some countries that have deregulated marketing of some farm commodities, increases in farmer suicides have increased by 400 per cent in only a few years.
First-aid training courses on identifying and dealing with stress, mental health, and suicide offered in English in Quebec have been very hard to find and as a result, not enough people have had the opportunity to educate themselves.
While attending a suicide awareness and prevention course, I was surprised to hear that one person in 20 have or will contemplate suicide sometime in their life. Mental health issues are much more prevalent and statistics show that one person in five will or already have experienced some degree of a mental health problem.
A local minister Rev. Mavis Brownlee with financial help and support from our MNA André Fortin, has made it possible for a two day course on mental first aid to be offered in English, in Shawville. The first course is already full but another will be offered if people sign up.
A one day course on suicide awareness and prevention will also be offered if people are interested. Although these training days can be lifesaving in anyone’s life, first responders (eg. Firemen) could really benefit from these courses. All people completing the training will receive attestation and for anyone who may someday seek a job, this could not only help save a life but also be valuable on a resume. Similar courses delivered in French are also available.

Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations. gladcrest@gmail.com