Impact Farming

In this week's episode, we speak to Louise Sanders in a provocative conversation on stress, farming, and the idea of "Is Stress Really A Choice?" Louise is a speaker, a trainer, and a stress consultant with The Stress Experts, a business that she created to help people conquer stress. As we all know, 2019 has been a tremendously tough farming year for many farmers, causing a lot of...you guessed it...stress. Our goal here on The Impact Farming Show is to bring our audience the people and ideas that will IMPACT their farming operation, and we could not think of a more impactful topic than stress. I think most farmers can agree that farming is stressful. Not only are there seasonal periods of intense stress levels, but farmers also tend to face year around stressors, including; weather, pests/disease concerns, market fluctuations, politics, policy changes, and activism. We can then move into a whole host of financial management related matters, including cash flow, interest rates, and so on. Louise has earned her Bachelor of Medical Rehabilitation, Physical Therapy at the University of Manitoba in 2009. Besides being a Certified HeartMath Trainer, she is also certified in a variety of alternative therapies. Most importantly, she is passionate about helping individuals conquer stress, not just manage it, so they can FEEL better, DO better, and BE better. If you have ever found yourself feeling stressed, you will not want to miss this episode where Tracy and Louise explore what stress is, what causes stress, and how we can "simply" choose not to become stressed. Everything that you thought you knew about stress might just be tossed out the combine window in this episode. Intrigued? Don't miss this timely and important interview.

In this week's episode, we speak to Sylvia Massinon, a Social Worker & Educator, about resources available to farmers that are in distress.

Based in Manitoba, Sylvia's role includes educating the public and training volunteers for The Manitoba Farm, Rural & Northern Support Services (MFRNSS), which provides telephone and online counseling to farmers, rural and northern Manitobans. The goal of the telephone and online services is to provide non-judgemental counseling, support, information, and referrals for people in distress and/or crisis. While this line is targeted to Manitoba farmers, Sylvia kindly shares her time speaking to us about the overall importance and availability of support services to farmers across Canada.

In this week's episode "Advice That Could Save a Life…", we speak to Shawn Brook in a poignant interview about his very personal experience with mental illness and suicide. Demonstrating that he is tough enough to talk about it, Shawn opens up and shares the gut-wrenching experience that he and his family went through when his wife died by suicide. One of the biggest lessons that he learned from this life-changing event was that he didn't know anything about mental health.

In last week's episode, we covered "Tough Times in Farming & Mental Health Concerns." This episode is created with the farmer in mind.

In this week's follow up episode with Gerry Friesen titled "Front Line Workers In Ag & Mental Health Concerns" we are speaking to and supporting the front line workers in agriculture. Who are front line workers, you may ask? They are anyone and everyone that works directly with farmers, including; sales representatives, nutritionists, agrologists, veterinarians, mechanics/technicians, consultants, accounts payable, bankers, etc. They are the professionals that work at agriculture companies and connect directly with farmers on the telephone and through on-farm visits.

Often since family and employees are directly involved in the farm and "so close to home," these professionals are the trusted outside individual that farmers are comfortable opening up to. This can be both a point of honor and a source of strain for front line workers. Take, for example, the salesman that needs to visit the farm and chat about next year's inputs, while in a year like 2019, this year's crops may have just come off with much frustration or may even still be sitting in the field. As a professional, they are just doing their job, and because they are a trusted individual, they either become the confidant for the farmer's troubles or the dumping ground for their frustration. It is often these same professionals that become privy to or spot mental health concerns in their clients. What should they do?

In today's episode, we chat about just that. Do you work on the front lines with farmers? If so, this episode in for you.

Mental Health Month

The Good Years vs. the Challenging Years... 2019, has been an unprecedented year of farming. Gerry talks about looking back while looking forward and the stresses involved that have been leading up to the perfect storm.

You don't want to miss this episode...

2019 has been a year for the books in the agriculture industry. Whether it was too much moisture or not enough, poor commodity prices and/or trade issues….farmers have been struggling with the day to day production challenges while carrying the mental burden of uncertain business conditions. It's times like these that each and every one of us need to be on high alert for mental health concerns. Whether you are a farmer or work with farmers, it's important that we keep an eye out for each other. We can do this simply by being aware of and watching out for the common mental health warning signs. What are those warning signs you may ask?

In this episode, the first of several upcoming mental health-focused episodes, we are flashing back to one of our highest viewed mental health episodes with Dr. Georges who is a Psychologist, Stress Expert, and Author. Dr. George joined us on The Impact Farming Show and shared some information about mental health and some of the most common warning signs.

Please don't miss this episode…

Start Early... Experts George Sinker and Joseph Hentz cannot stress enough how important this is for your family's farm future.

If you wait for a critical event to happen, decision will be made that may be taxed based vs people based and you may not want to live with those decisions in the future.

Tune into Part 3 of this Mini Series to learn more...

Do you find yourself to busy working IN the business with no time to work ON the business?

Join us in part 2 of this mini series with George Sinker and Joseph Hentz, as they cover the need for strong communication to find commons grounds during Farm Transitions.

Key Points covered in today's episode; Corporate Re-Organizations, Shareholder Agreements and ... Marriage Contracts.

In this episode we are excited to sit down with George Sinker and Joseph Hentz, from Lerners LLP, in Part One of our Three Part Mini-series on Transition Planning! Tracy dives right into the subject and asks both George and Joseph the 101 questions to help our audience get started on their transition planning journey. This first interview focuses on: - Where to start? - Who to work with? - Where to find and how to hire? - What does the process look like/entail? If you have ever wondered how to get started on this process within your operation, you will not want to miss out on this mini-series! Show Mentions In the show George mentions his FEA Designation and his recommendation for farmers to work with an FEA advisor. If you are looking for an advisor to lead and help you navigate this process, you can visit the Family Enterprise xchange website for more information.

Who gets the Farm? What are farm participation policies? Are you actually qualified to takeover the family farm? Experts Brent and Elaine discuss these loaded questions And more, as Tracy asks them some of the toughest questions on farm transition.

They share some honest insights and helpful tips to start or continue your transition planning conversation.

Don't miss this one...