Spring can be a stressful time for farmers, especially with the China-Canada feud over canola imports and the Farm Stress Line has noticed an increase in calls.

"Recently we did a report to the Ministry of Agriculture, and I looked at the last fiscal year, and there's been a significant increase in calls," stated John McFadyen Executive Director of Mobile Crisis Services. "In 2017/18 there were 320 calls, and in our last fiscal year, which goes to the end of March of 2019, we had 757 calls."  

The Farm Stress Line is available to farmers 24/7, who feel the pressure or stress of farming.

"We deal with the personal social issues that anyone in Saskatchewan would encounter. Issues such as mental health, whether it's mental health issues or mental health wellness with stress and anxiety or it's relationship problems with domestics or addiction issues or having relationship problems with a teen. So we address those kinds of things, but they are also connected to farming with people from rural Saskatchewan calling."

"The most significant issues connecting to the farming community, the number one issue was financial, and that was identified with the debt that they're carrying, the cash flow, and concerns with bankruptcy. The second most important farming issues that were identified was succession and transition and exiting out of farming for farmers and decisions around that. Third was crops, whether that's knowing what to plant, what to seed, dealing with ranchers or livestock and any of those things related to farming. Decisions can, depending on the individual's abilities, can stress people out, they can have more anxiety around that, there can be relationship issues with making those decisions with other family members. As I said before, their families that live on the farm and they have relationships with relatives, with support people within the family and like any family, there are traumatic events that happen, there conflicts that happen, and that's what we are here to address."

 The toll-free number for the "Farm Stress Line" is 1-800-667-4442, for more information visit their website.