Farmer Wellness Initiative focuses on helping farmers in needHelp for Ontario farmers and their families

by Tyler Brooks Director of Communications and Stakeholder Relations

A telehealth line that makes mental wellness support available to all Ontario farmers and farm families is now live. It is part of the Farmer Wellness Initiative (FWI), which addresses growing mental health concerns in the agricultural sector by offering more accessible mental health and wellness support to farm families across the province.

“The mental health crisis in the agricultural community has been well documented in recent years and the Farmer Wellness Initiative fills a critical gap for farmers and their families across Ontario,” says Peggy Brekveld, farmer and President of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA). “Bottom line – if you’re part of a farm family in Ontario and need mental health support for any reason, this telehealth line is available to you.”

OFA has partnered with the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) – Ontario Division and LifeWorks to develop and launch this initiative. It is the first step of a multi-year, provincewide program that provides free counselling services virtually, in-person or on the phone by professional counsellors with agricultural backgrounds and training.

The confidential helpline is accessible 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in English and French, as well as up to 30 other languages, and the new FWI website explains how to use the free service.

To raise awareness, OFA has launched the Farmer Wellness Initiative – Fields to Forks campaign with different Bell Media outlets across the province that includes TV, radio, print and online ads. A mental health focused one-minute film, specific to FWI, will be widely shared across social media platforms and FWI will have a booth alongside CMHA Ontario at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show in Woodstock on September 13 to 15. Additionally, there will be materials and giveaways available at the International Plowing Match in Kemptville from September 20 to 24, and future displays at various other farm and rural events this fall and winter.

As well, several Ask the Expert shows on 1290 CJBK AM radio station in London will focus on mental health in agriculture, including a segment on September 17 featuring Brekveld and fellow farmer Joe Dickenson, discussing the mental health struggles of farm families, and one on October 1 with Kristin Wheatcroft from CMHA that will address available support programs. Both segments will run 1:00 to 1:30 pm.

“We want to make as many farmers and their families as possible aware of this new service and that help is available if someone needs it, regardless of their farm organization membership or affiliation,” says Bruce Buttar, OFA director and Chair of the Farmer Wellness Initiative Advisory Committee. “We’ve been developing many resources to help break the silence around mental health, including the new FWI website that helps people identify when they might need help and what happens once they pick up the phone to make that first call.”

Other advisory committee members represent the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, L'Union des Cultivateurs Franco-

Ontariens, National Farmers’ Union, Canadian Mental Health Association – Ontario, University of Guelph, and the Rural Ontario Institute.

The mental health helpline for farmers can be reached at 1-866-2676255; additional resources are available on the Farmer Wellness Initiative website.

Paid for in part by the governments of Canada and Ontario and through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership (the Partnership), a five-year, federal-provincialterritorial initiative.

Common Local Trees are dying due to global warming

William John Langenberg, M.Sc Env. Biol., Former researcher and lecturer at Kemptville College

Climate change seems to have a devastating effect on some common local landscape trees and shrubs. Popular trees, such as Mountain Ash, Beech, Willow, and Serviceberry are losing their leaves mid-summer. If this global warming continues, the familiar oak will be added to the extinction list, according to research by Dr. Ir. Wieger Wamelink, Ecologist, at the University of Wageningen, the Netherlands. This summer has been hard on the Serviceberry (Amelanchier Canadensis).

On the photo can be seen that the bottom half of this 10-year old Serviceberry tree is losing its leaves. Earlier this month, the leaves were

Call Elevator: 613-774-4246

Home: 613-774-3305 discoloring. This tree has a hard time surviving. The average temperature ranged between 26 and 30 C with a minimal amount of rainfall. Warmelink in Wageningen researched strictly the relationship between temperature and tree decline. He concluded the temperature sensitivity can be related to the decline of the trees. Similarly, this author did an extensive study of average daily temperature that occurred at Kemptville College over a 50 year period from 1937-1987. This research showed that the average daily temperature at the college had increased by 0.5 C over the 50 years. As a result of this study, this author changed the Winter Hardiness Zone Map by half-a zone for Eastern Ontario. This created some animosity

• Cell: 613-229-2142

12650 Ormond Road, Winchester, Ontario among the climatologists in Ottawa, because snow depth was not included in this study. A climate study today showed that the average annual temperature at the Ottawa airport increased from 5.5 C in 1997 to 6.6 C in 2022, an increase of 1.1 C. If another 0.7 C is added in the next 10 years, a large portion of Ontario’s ecosystem is beyond the preferred temperature range for most of cultivated landscape plants and garden plants, such as wild raspberries, blueberries and flowering herbs.

The flowers of Blue Spice Basil and Ararat basil are aborting this summer because of the high temperature. The higher the temperature, the more plants and trees will be in trouble. At a certain point, the warming will affect the foundation of

Ontario’s forests; including the pedunculated oak and nut trees.

Hedges, hedgerows and narrow strips of double rowed trees will help to alleviate the warming trend with the creation of microclimates. Solitary trees out in the open are often the first to fall prey to the heat, because they are baking in the sun on hot days.

Old forests, common around Kemptville, provide a greater shelter against the heat as there is more diversity among the trees in those forests. That means that many different types of trees of a mixture of deciduous and coniferous trees with different root depths, soil formation and shades will help keep each other upright during the hot summer days.

Preservation of the forests around Kemptville therefore is essential.

In 1987, Clarence Coons and Alf Campbell of MNR, Earl Hicks and this author of Kemptville College planted a mixture of deciduous and coniferous trees on the college campus along Concession Road (across from South Branch School) to change the microclimates on this section of the campus. Today, if the coniferous trees are removed, the sugar maples will die because of heat stress and sunscald, followed by the decline of poplars.

If this warming trend continues, trees from southern regions with a different DNA (adaptable to higher temperatures) may perform better in southern and eastern Ontario.

FOR SALE