A group of farmers who helped farmers adapt to disabilities and keep farming called on Manitoba farmers to help it re-form during KAP’s annual general meeting on January 26.
“We need people who can go out and talk to (injured farmers) on the same level and make sure that they know there’s a way to continue on,” said Bob Guest, chair of the Canadian Farmers with Disabilities Registry.
Several years ago, the organization lost its main funding which severely limited its work.
The organization started in Saskatchewan when farmers with disabilities — including one who’d lost both arms in a baler accident — banded together to help each other adapt to their new circumstances, Guest said.
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A key portion of the organization’s efforts was visiting injured farmers — in the hospital if possible. Guest described sending farmers with similar disabilities to visit the farmer or farm family, “… so they could see that other farmers with a similar disability was quite able to go out and farm.”
The group recognized that families of the injured farmer suffered as well and needed mental health support.
“In one case, a farmer lost his arm. The farmer was doing quite well with the incident, but the son who had turned the auger on was greatly suffering with mental health issues,” Guest told the federal standing committee for agriculture and agri-food in a 2018 presentation.
Guest told KAP members the organization would match farm families with the family of the injured farmer so both spouses could talk to each other and the kids could also talk to each other about their experiences.
Board members began work to revitalize the registry in 2018. After speaking with MPs that year, Guest said, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada offered them a grant to help them re-form.
This included a stipulation that the Canadian Farmers with Disabilities Registry raise about $28,000 of its own funds by March 31, 2022. If they don’t meet that total, Guest said he expected them to lose the grant.
Guest said they’d raised between $10,000 and $12,000 thus far. Based on the number of farmers in each province, they’d calculated what each province’s share was of that total, Guest said. For Manitoba, it was around $2,000.
KAP and the Manitoba Pork Council had contributed about 50 per cent of that, Guest said. He asked farmers and farm groups for just over $900 more.
