The SaskAGMatters Network offers free mental health support services for Saskatchewan agriculture producers.  

The network is part of the research findings and the knowledge mobilization plan from the FARMh initiative. 

“[The FARMh initiative] is a patient-oriented research program from Sask Polytech,” says Michelle Pavloff, Research Chair, Rural Health. “Something that came up in our research was a general consensus that producers are not feeling heard, they’re not feeling understood, and a lot of them feel that practitioners don’t understand their culture. It’s important to them that they receive mental health services from a practitioner that understands where they were coming from.” 

From there, Sask Polytech developed the first stages of its new network. 

“We’re going to need an intersectoral multimodal plan and we need to bring in everybody that’s involved in the industry,” Pavloff recounts. “So, government, AG businesses, community members, patient partners, people in the education sector. Let’s bring them all together in one place so we can all work together for a common goal...” 

The goal was to create a network where producers could safely advocate for themselves by talking to a practitioner with experience in their field of work. 

“I had reached out to two of our patient/industry partners on our team, who are very strong mental health advocates and producers themselves, and asked if they would be codirectors of the network. Thankfully, they agreed, so we launched at the end of November during Agribition and we now have our website up... SaskAGMatters Network was born.” 

The network was also funded by private donations from people in the community to Sask Polytech. 

“We had a lot of private donations come in last year and they were just being held in trust at Sask Polytech,” says Pavloff. “We truly believe that anybody that’s in the farming industry that needs access to services should be able to get them free of charge. This is all paid for by the private donations, so we are very blessed with this program and it seems to be going well so far.” 

Through the network, any agriculture producer, families of producers, or support people, can access six free one-hour counseling sessions with either a doctorally prepared registered psychologist or a registered social worker. 

“All of our practitioners understand farming, farm culture, or they are farmers themselves, and those free counseling services are being utilized,” says Pavloff. “Approximately 10 producers have accessed [the network] since the end of November, which is really good.” 

Although they can check the statistics, Sask Polytech doesn’t have access to who is using their network. 

“It’s completely anonymous to us in the network. I just receive the bills from the practitioners and then I pass those on, and [the practitioners] get paid,” says Pavloff. “I don’t know who’s accessing it, we’re just going off of the honour system.” 

The SaskAGMatters Network is a big step forward for the agriculture community and mental health support in Saskatchewan. 

To access the new SaskAGMatters Network, click here.