Gerry Friesen speaks at St. Jean Farm Days, January 8, 2025

VIDEO: Farmers need to talk more about mental health

At St. Jean Farm Days earlier this month, Gerry Friesen (a.k.a. ‘the Recovering Farmer’) took to the podium for a presentation entitled, Mental Health Matters on the Farm. In it, Friesen spoke about the prevalence of mental health challenges in the farm community and how farmers can find help via the Manitoba Farmer Wellness Program.









Farmer at Dawn

Editorial: The yearly farm safety reality check

Farming is a dangerous job. It’s a sentence most of us have heard so often that it doesn’t resonate the way it probably should. The sector involves a lot of heavy equipment, powerful livestock and in many cases a farmer working alone, far from help and in areas with patchy cell service if something goes


Given their large size, trains often appear to be farther away and travelling much slower than they actually are. Don’t be fooled. It takes the equivalent length of 18 football fields for the average freight train to come to a stop.

Farm safety includes being rail safe

In a contest between big farm equipment and a train, the train still wins

With nearly 45,000 kilometres of active railway tracks and roughly 40,000 railway crossings from coast to coast, many Canadians encounter trains daily. That’s especially true in rural areas, where many farms are located near railway tracks. In 2022, Canada’s incidents between trains and vehicles or people totalled 232. Of those, 66 people died and 43

VIDEO: Sprayer loading invention wins farm safety award

VIDEO: Sprayer loading invention wins farm safety award

At Manitoba Ag Days earlier this year, Setter Manufacturing took first prize in the Farm Safety category for its Sprayer Companion invention. “The Spray Companion is probably the safest loading device in the industry for loading on high-clearance sprayers or any sprayers that you might have on the farm,” says Greg Setter, president of Setter