Due to the many uncontrollable factors that farming can bring, mental health and stress in the industry can act as a huge burden. Some problems these producers face include the inability to ship their product, the struggle of affording the means to produce their product, and sometimes having weather affect the process of physically growing their product.

These factors are in no doubt related to the increase of calls to the farmers help stress line this past year.
A survey of Canadian farmers released in 2016, found over half the respondents met the classifications for anxiety and one third met the classifications for depression, which is significantly higher than most Canadians. The industry is never a guarantee, and that is making people ask what can be done to help cope with these uncertainties.

“Mental health is a concern within every industry but particularly acute in agriculture,” Minister Responsible for Innovation Saskatchewan Tina Beaudry-Mellor said.  “Our government believes technology can provide help to farm families dealing with this complex and demanding issue.”

Innovation Saskatchewan is partnering with the Ministry of Agriculture in attempt to launch a program to improve the monitoring of farmers mental health. The challenge was launched on March 5, and is asking Saskatchewan based companies and entrepreneurs to answer this question: What technological solutions can assist Saskatchewan farmers in actively monitoring their mental health?

“Innovation Challenges find inventive answers to public issues,” Beaudry-Mellor said. “We have successfully collaborated with our province’s tech sector to combat rural crime, grant permissions for hunting and fishing on private land and track the waste that ends up in our province’s landfills.”

Possible solutions people could come up with include an app, a website, or some sort of Artificial Intelligence. The board for the project will choose from the field, and the winning submission will receive $10,000 in funding, and a 16 week collaboration with the government to develop their ideas.

For anyone interested, public information sessions will be held in Saskatoon on March 17, and in Regina on March 19, as well as the online version being released on March 24th.