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For many Canadian farmers, the pressures that threaten mental health are embedded in the work itself: isolation, financial uncertainty, long hours, dangerous conditions, unpredictable weather, and the expectation that they should be able to manage almost anything on their own.

Increasingly, mental health leaders say support for farmers must be built around those realities.

Two recent launches in Canada reflect that shift.

The AgWell Farmer Wellness Network Alberta (AgWellAB) was launched in April and currently serves Rocky View County. It connects farmers, their families, and agricultural workers with therapists who understand the rhythms, culture, and pressures of agriculture. The aim is to make mental health support easier to access “in a way that fits real farm life,” Rebecca Purc-Stephenson, PhD, University of Alberta, Edmonton, lead researcher for AgWellAB, told Medscape News Canada.

Nationally, the Canadian Centre for Agricultural Wellbeing rolled out the National Farmer Wellness Network Crisis Line in February 2025. The line, available at 1-866-FARMS01, provides 24/7 confidential support from licensed mental health professionals trained through the Canadian Agricultural Literacy Program. It is funded by a CAD $1.5 million, 3-year investment from Farm Credit Canada.

Both initiatives are part of a broader movement to build mental health services that are farmer-led, evidence-based, and culturally informed. Advocates say such services are needed because conventional mental health care often fails to account for the conditions, identity, and barriers that shape life in agricultural communities.

The federal government’s 2019 standing committee report, Mental Health: A Priority for Our Farmers, was an early catalyst, Briana Hagen, PhD, CEO and lead scientist at the Canadian Centre for Agricultural Wellbeing told Medscape News Canada. The report identified a lack of national infrastructure for research-to-intervention work in farmer mental health, and the Canadian Centre for Agricultural Wellbeing was incorporated in 2022 to help fill that gap.

“We’re seeing an increased appreciation for the work that farmers have been doing, and an increase in the conversations about what we’re doing to support them. It’s clear that the mental health of farmers is not always okay,” Michelle Pavloff, RN, PhD, co-founder and scientific lead of the SaskAgMatters Mental Health Network told Medscape News Canada. On April 1, SaskAgMatters took over the management of the crisis line for Saskatchewan.

Stressors Are Multifactorial

Surveys have documented high levels of anxiety, depression, and stress among Canadian farmers.

Data from the first national survey of Canadian farmers, conducted by researchers at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, and published in 2020, found that 57% of respondents reported anxiety and 34% met criteria for depression, while nearly half reported high levels of stress.

A second survey, conducted during the pandemic in 2021, found that conditions had worsened. Most participants with moderate-to-severe scores for outcomes such as burnout, anxiety, or alcohol use reported worsening symptoms. Women fared significantly worse than men across these measures, and more than twice as many women as men sought mental health or substance use support during the pandemic.

A third national survey is currently underway, with results expected by fall 2026.

“The challenges for farmers are wide-ranging, and in addition to the stressors looked at in the surveys, they face many time pressures, lack of manpower, bad weather, unpredictable work disruptions — many things that are outside of their control,” Purc-Stephenson said. “Simmering in the background are the realities that agricultural work has a high-risk level associated with it, including physical labor, long hours, and the possibility of making mistakes while working with heavy machinery when you’re tired.”

Other factors include geographical and social isolation, as well as access to firearms and toxins “that can create a recipe for poor mental health and also ways of dealing with it,” she said.

The culture of farming can also make it harder to seek help, Pavloff said. A strong ethos of self-sufficiency may be useful in day-to-day farm operations but can become a barrier when farmers are struggling.

“Farmers fix their tractors, their electricity, they do everything themselves. But it’s often difficult to manage your mental health by yourself.”

Pavloff and her team currently are completing a study on barriers to help-seeking among Saskatchewan farmers and ranchers. Those barriers include geographic access challenges, lack of awareness that services exist, stoicism and stigma, and concern, especially in small communities, that seeking help won’t be confidential.

Farmer-Led, Evidence-Based

A defining feature of the new initiatives is that they were designed with farmers, not just for them, Pavloff said.

SaskAgMatters, for example, began not with a research protocol but with farmers around a dinner table. From the outset, “farmers and ranchers were really running the show. They told us what was important to them and what they wanted to see happen.”

What they consistently asked for, she said, “was farmers supporting farmers, as well as healthcare providers who understood that farming is not just a job.” Every mental health provider at SaskAgMatters has either grown up on a farm or has lived experience with agriculture.

“If farmers are reaching out for mental health support through our crisis line, they want to know that their care practitioner or the person on the other end of the phone understands what they need.”

That understanding can determine whether a farmer stays engaged in care, Pavloff said.

“If, for example, a physician or nurse or mental health counselor says, ‘Why don’t you just take some time off?’ or ‘Why don’t you look for another job?’ the conversation will end immediately,” she said. “That farmer may have five generations of farmers standing behind them, and those questions essentially are asking that person to change who they are.”

Farm-informed therapy affects both service design and clinical encounters, Purc-Stephenson noted. Therapists may offer flexible or evening hours to accommodate seasonal demands, maintain lenient cancellation policies for planting or calving emergencies, and position clinics outside high-visibility areas to protect confidentiality, “because in close-knit rural communities, a truck parked outside a therapist’s office can feel like a public announcement,” she said.

In sessions, therapists often use a conversational tone and may ask farmers to explain their business or current work.

“Therapists may even mirror the language the farmer uses to help the interaction feel more familiar, and to build trust.”

The Canadian Centre for Agricultural Wellbeing is built around similar principles, said Hagen. Its Canadian Agricultural Literacy Program, an evidence-based training program for therapists and crisis counselors across the national network, is intended to provide quality assurance while creating a cohort of providers who can support each other.

Even clinicians with no direct connection to agricultural communities may encounter patients from farming backgrounds, Pavloff added. They should have at least a basic understanding of the pressures farmers face and how they might affect care.

“If my husband came to New York and collapsed in Times Square, the care he receives would still need to be culturally informed,” she said. That knowledge is also necessary for providers who work in urban settings in Canada. “Knowing what a patient was working on at the farm, what season they’re in, and what is at stake financially for them right now provides important context.”

What’s Ahead

The Canadian Centre for Agricultural Wellbeing is running a pilot in Manitoba for a crisis liaison program — a structured response model in which a trained person or team automatically responds to a farm crisis with mental health support, Hagen said. The pilot is expected to expand across the country through the National Farmer Wellness Network.

“We’re really focused on primary care and prevention, and having early intervention so that producers don’t end up in a crisis situation,” she said.

Hagen is also looking ahead to the third round of national survey data, which will allow the field to track whether farmers’ mental health has improved, worsened, or shifted over the past 5 years.

“What excites me most right now is watching a lot of siloed work become collaborative national work,” she said. “A lot of good work was happening in small buckets across the country, and now we’re seeing that become a larger network and a larger infrastructure that farmers have access to.”

Pavloff said, the most meaningful measure of progress is whether farmers feel safe enough to use the services available to them.

“We have a lot of opportunity right now to offer supports that are culturally appropriate to folks who may be feeling really vulnerable,” Pavloff added. “The most exciting thing for me is when our organization hears that the therapy we’re offering has saved their life.”

Pavloff, Purc-Stephenson, and Hagen reported having no relevant financial relationships.

Marilynn Larkin, MA, is an award-winning medical writer and editor whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including Medscape Medical News and its sister publication MDEdge, The Lancet (where she was a contributing editor), and Reuters Health.