Our Annual Meeting was held in Truro on November 30th. Although our keynote speaker, Dr. Andria Jones-Bitton’s flight to Nova Scotia was cancelled, that didn’t stop her from giving an excellent presentation, via Skype. Highlighting her research on mental health in Canadian agriculture, Andria also provided strategies to support the wellness of our farmers.
Through Andria, we learned that farmers today are struggling with issues relating to stress, anxiety and low resilience. This information was collected through the National Survey on Mental Health in Canadian Agriculture, which was sent out to farmers from all commodities across Canada in 2015-2016. Andria and her team at the University of Guelph, are working on a mental health literacy support program tailored specifically to farmers, called “In the Know”, to support the results of her research. It is expected to be released the summer of 2019 and we will keep you updated on the program!
The FSNS business meeting was held following Andria’s presentation with highlights of last year’s activities. Highlights included increasing and updating our communication channels, launching our “One Road” road safety campaign and announcing and showcasing our “Prevent Harm on the Farm” video contest winners! Moving forward, we are working on creating new tools and resources to support our members as well as continuing our training and workshop initiatives. This includes hosting a workshop for Canadian Agriculture Safety Week, which runs March 10 – 16. Stay tuned for updates on this workshop!
We were pleased to have Marcel Hacault, the Executive Director of the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association (CASA), to provide us with an update on campaigns and initiatives taking place at the National level, which include: Ag Safety Week, BeGrainSafe, Progressive Ag Safety Days and the Back to Ag Program.
Thank you to all who attended our AGM, and if you happened to miss it, just check out our Annual Report for the highlights. We look forward to the next year of providing farm safety support to our members and hope to see you all at next year’s annual meeting!
