Field Notes: Looking upstream at the farmer mental health crisis in Canada

The opinions and recommendations in this report, and any errors, are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders of this report. [...] While these efforts are crucial for improving the health and well-being of farmers, they remain focused on the downstream impacts of the problem and as such are inadequate to address the underlying or upstream causes of poor farmer mental health, particularly with regards to economic and financial uncertainty and climate breakdown. [...] The practice of tenant farming was seen as increasing the insecurity and precarity of farmers, as well as changing the relationship of farmers with their land, as renting farmers were less likely to invest in techniques that ensured the longevity of the soil. [...] Farmers also noted the role of ongoing colonialism and the “destruction of Indigenous ways of knowing/being.” (SR 02) Survey respondents noted grappling with the reality of farming on Indigenous land and not knowing Field Notes: Looking upstream at the farmer mental health crisis in Canada 28 “how to be part of the reconciliation, justice, and healing of historical and present colonial harms,” the. [...] If the population of a country must depend for their next meal on the vagaries and price swings of the global economy, on the goodwill of a superpower not to use food as a weapon, on the unpredictability and high cost of long-distance shipping, then that country is not secure, neither in the sense of national security nor in the sense of food security.”99 Shifts towards food sovereignty, however,.