Merle Massie, executive director of DoMoreAg, posed that question during a recent presentation about mental health in agriculture.

Lots of people strike up conversations with strangers during plane rides or trips, she said, and those strangers can become safe places to share.

That’s what AgTalk is — an anonymous and safe space for people 16 and older to receive peer support. It’s one of several platforms DoMoreAg provides as it continues to focus on awareness and action in the industry.

WHY IT MATTERS: Mental health in agriculture continues to be a concern as farmers face more pressure, isolation and financial uncertainty.

What is AgTalk?

AgTalk is powered by Togetherall, a peer-to-peer space, and available to anyone in Canada associated with agriculture.

Massie said the online, anonymous service can help those who don’t have family or community members they can talk comfortably with about some heavy topics.

“When you sign up, they give you a whole new name,” she said recently at Canada’s Farm Show in Regina.

“They do have your actual phone number and know where you live. This is important, just in case they need to send 911 to you.”

However, she said this would only be activated in a critical situation.

AgTalk is more like quiet support, she said. It’s text-based on a computer or a phone and even offers a way for people to draw how they feel.

“You can read what other people are facing,” Massie said.

“It helps you feel less alone, and you can share your story only if you want to.”

She said there is a lot of power in being a “regular person” sharing and listening to others.

Togetherall has other communities, such as those for first responders or those going through divorce.

There is a course available as well as curated articles, self-assessment and goal trackers.

Who is using AgTalk

Massie shared statistics from a 2025 report that showed 73 per cent of people who joined AgTalk are not engaged in formal mental health support, meaning AgTalk is the only one.

“Thirty-eight per cent of them report past thoughts of suicide or self-harm. These people are not feeling well,” she said.

“Eighty per cent reported their mental health as poor or very poor, and 42 per cent said that they shared something on Togetherall that they’ve never shared with anyone else.”

The statistics show people of all ages have joined.

Support outside business hours

Most of the activity on AgTalk, 88 per cent, occurs outside of normal business hours, and one-third of that activity is after midnight.

AgTalk is available 24/7, and it’s backed by clinicians, although Massie said they are not offering therapy on the site.

In 2025, the site saw six escalations in which the Wall Guides, the professionals who monitor the site, had to step in. All were successful, including one case that was taken outside the site for help.

Be a light for others

Massie encouraged people to shine a light on mental health. They can be porch lights, or those who are safe spaces for coffee and conversation, or flashlights, the type that can find those who are pulling away in their mental health struggles, or floodlights, shining widely to raise awareness.

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The two companies announced the deal March 2.

Zoetis will pay $160 million, subject to customary closing adjustments. Neogen had previously announced it planned to divest of this side of its business.

Zoetis said in a news release the acquisition “aligns directly with Zoetis’ strategy to drive future livestock innovation through genomics.”

Neogen serves customers in about 120 countries from five laboratories in the United States, Brazil, Australia, China and the United Kingdom. It also has an office in Canada.

The news release said it is a leader in U.S. beef and dairy genomics and uses cutting-edge technology for highly accurate scalable genetic testing.

WHY IT MATTERS: Genomics has transformed breeding, particularly in the dairy sector, by accelerating genetic gains through trait selection.

Neogen intends to use the sale proceeds for debt reduction and said the genomics business generated about $90 million in sales in fiscal 2025.

“This transaction is part of the company’s strategic portfolio review and allows the company to accelerate de-leveraging and improve profitability going forward,” said chief executive officer Mike Nassif.

“Furthermore, this deal allows us to focus in areas where the company has the most significant competitive advantage and further leverage our core capabilities in food and animal safety. We are committed to a smooth transition for customers, employees and other stakeholders, and believe the business is well positioned to thrive under Zoetis’ ownership.”

Zoetis chief commercial officer Jamie Brannan said the acquisition allows the company to expand its Precision Animal Health business and adds “complementary capabilities that expand predictive insights and individualized care.”

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The organization issued a statement Feb. 25, saying proposed changes should not go ahead.

It also called for “significant and immediate” reform of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and a voting seat on the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency board.

Chair Chad Ross said after several town hall meetings and lots of member feedback, the board issued the statement in response to what it heard.

He said the statement went to the provincial agriculture minister and to national beef organizations so they can lobby the federal government.

WHY IT MATTERS: The CFIA postponed introducing the planned amendments in early January after an outcry from producers who said movement reporting would be too onerous and expensive. The amendments had been developed with industry through the Cattle Implementation Plan.

The proposed amendments were to be published this spring, but after misinformation spread on social media, many producers thought they were already in place.

They were to be the next step in a full traceability system to help the industry through an animal disease outbreak or food safety incident by reporting cattle movement.

“We heard loud and clear from our producers that regulations is not something that they want, and so that is the direction that we took.”

Chad Ross
Chair Saskatchewan Cattle Association

“Also, we heard loud and clear that they have lost trust in our regulatory body and that there needs to be significant reform within that before we can even entertain regulations.”

That reform includes putting CFIA back under the agriculture department’s jurisdiction rather than health.

Ross also said the CFIA must understand how cow-calf operations and commerce work. Producers must be incentivized, not criminalized, in investigations, he said.

“We have a lot of work to do as far as technology within our ability to trace animals easily, effectively and not be burdensome or costly to our producers until we get there,” said Ross.

The CCIA is owned by producers, and he said a voting seat is important to have influence on that board.

Other provinces could follow suit with their own statements, given the widespread concern about the amendments at the beginning of the year.

The CCA would not comment on the SCA’s position, although Ross said he had spoken with president Tyler Fulton.

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Federal agriculture minister Heath MacDonald announced Feb. 25 the change would be implemented for the 2026 program year. Ministers had committed to this change at their meeting in July.

Livestock producers had asked for this to make the program more attractive to that sector.

WHY IT MATTERS: The costs related to feeding grazing animals on rented pasture were not allowable and producers argued they should be.

The federal government said this would provide more equitable support for cow-calf, sheep and goat producers.

MacDonald said the government is committed to effective, responsive programs for all producers.

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The Saskatchewan trip from Feb. 28 to March 6 has been planned for nearly a year to coincide with the annual Raisina Dialogue, a conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics where Moe will speak.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is also traveling to India next week for a couple of days to meet with prime minister Narendra Modi on free trade talks and drum up investment partnerships. Moe and New Brunswick premier Susan Holt will join him for meetings before Carney moves on to Australia and Japan.

WHY IT MATTERS: The Canadian and provincial governments continue to look to expand trade opportunities amid ongoing tariff threats from U.S. president Donald Trump. Canadian pulse growers currently face 30 per cent import duties on yellow peas into India, as well as 10 per cent tariffs on lentils as India protects its own farmers.

Moe told reporters Feb. 25 he hoped to address the agricultural tariffs, particularly because India could raise the lentil tariff to 30 per cent as of April 1.

“The hope today is to not have them increased,” he said.

“We’ll be engaging on that topic.”

However, he isn’t necessarily expecting movement as a result of this trip. He said that will take more negotiation and missions similar to what happened in China with regard to canola tariffs.

Moe said he hopes Carney and Modi will agree to reinvigorate discussion around the Canada-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which stalled several years ago.

That would be a positive step for Saskatchewan, which has exported $18 billion worth of products to India since 2007. In 2025, those exports totalled $1.4 billion.

Asked why Carney would again ask him to join a trade mission, as he did in China, Moe said it’s likely because Saskatchewan has been doing positive work in the market, as evidenced by the trade statistics.

The province is one of the most trade-diversified, selling into 160 countries, and Moe said that’s due to hard work and building relationships.

“I think there’s a recognition by the prime minister that we can be helpful in this space,” the premier said.

“We’re happy to see that we have a prime minister that is willing to look at the economic agreements that we have with these countries, and I think we have a role to play in supporting, advancing, those opportunities. We’ve been waiting some time to have somebody in the room that’s willing to sign a trade agreement with countries like India.”

Saskatchewan provincial budget

Meanwhile, Moe signaled this week that the provincial budget to be delivered next month will have a deficit but no tax increases. He said other provinces have also tabled deficit budgets, and he urged people to compare the deficit per capita once Saskatchewan has introduced its fiscal plan.

“There are revenue challenges due to the trade uncertainty, market uncertainty around the world,” he said.

“We experienced pretty significant agricultural tariffs in our second largest market being China, and that starts to show up, definitely on the revenue line, at the farmgate and at the provincial government level.”

However, he said the Saskatchewan economy is resilient, at least in part because it is so diversified and not dependent on a single commodity or a single market.

The opposition NDP said it didn’t trust the government to provide the province’s full financial picture.

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At least four meetings will be held.

The deputy minister of agriculture, Lawrence Hanson, and two assistants were the first witnesses to appear.

Hanson said as part of the comprehensive expenditure review across government, his department had to find $154.7 million in savings by 2028-29. Those savings are occurring across the department, but the coming changes to research operations have hit particularly hard.

WHY IT MATTERS: Public research is seen as critical to enhancing Canada’s productivity and efficiency throughout agriculture and all farm organizations have criticized the decision.

Hanson said the department’s operating budget is about $800 million annually, and science and research facilities account for about $300 million of that. In turn, $90 million of the $300 million is spent on corporate support, including maintenance and utilities associated with running 20 research centres and 25 satellite centres.

Most efficient use of funds

Over time, the facilities have required more upkeep.

“It was determined it would be a much more efficient use of funds to consolidate science efforts in fewer facilities and priorize science efforts that are most core to the department’s mandate, rather than diverting more and more resources to operational costs and upkeep,” Hanson said.

Thus the decision was made to close Quebec City, Guelph, Ont., and Lacombe, Alta., and four satellite farms at Scott and Indian Head in Saskatchewan, Portage la Prairie, Man., and Nappan, N.S.

He said 27 research scientists will not stay in their current location or be offered an equivalent position elsewhere. The federal government will remain the largest agricultural research organization in the country, he added, and every province will have at least one centre.

Regina-Qu’Appelle Conservative MP Andrew Scheer attended the meeting and said he was there to fight for the Indian Head farm, which employs 30 full-time employees and more during the summer.

Alain Legace, assistant deputy minister of corporate management, said the total operating cost for Indian Head is $3.8 million a year. Costs will continue because the divestiture will take years, he said.

Scheer asked if the department had assessed whether costs could be reduced and still keep the site open.

Hanson said the question isn’t whether the site could remain viable with more investment.

“The answer is, we have decided that the greatest level of savings and efficiency could come by consolidating our efforts elsewhere,” he said.

Some of the Indian Head research is to be moved to Outlook, Sask., where the federal government is a partner at the irrigation centre.

MPs pointed out that there are various soil types across the country, and research conducted at one site won’t necessarily fit elsewhere.

Andrew Goldstein, associate assistant deputy minister in the science and technology branch, said the department is aware of the differences, but with four sites in Saskatchewan remaining, it believes it can “generate sufficient diversity to continue our programs.”

Government spending criticized

Scheer and others criticized previous government spending of $8.5 million on a cricket farm and $8.2 million on a low-carbon rice program in Vietnam.

And some noted that a government Scheer was part of had cut the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration and the Shelterbelt Centre at Indian Head about a dozen years ago.

Bloc Quebecois MP Sebastien Lemire said his region was affected during the 2012 cuts by the former Stephen Harper government, and his party is against the latest cuts.

Blaine Calkins, the Alberta Conservative MP for Ponoka-Didsbury, which includes the Lacombe Research Centre, said he hasn’t heard from anyone who thinks closing the centre is a good idea. He said the cuts are coming at the expense of producers and asked if the decision is reversible.

“We are not reconsidering this decision,” Hanson responded.

“We do believe that there are other people we can partner with and other universities and move some of this work elsewhere.”

Legace said it will take 12 months to wind down scientific activity. After that, the property will be divested following a Treasury Board process that requires it to be offered first to other government departments, then provincial and territorial governments and then municipalities and First Nations.

The officials said they could not guarantee any of the land would remain agricultural.

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The Sunterra group of companies got its start in the hog breeding business in 1970 and later expanded into meat processing, food processing and retail. The lawsuit relates to U.S. hog operations which were later sold to Tyson Foods.

King’s Bench justice Michael Lema, in a written decision, found that Sunterra and Ray Price participated in a cheque-kiting scheme that cost the American lender that amount.

“I find that cheque kiting occured here, that the Canadian Sunterra entities involved fraudulently misrepresented that south-going cheques were anchored by sufficient funds to be honoured, that those entities intended Compeer to rely on those misrepresentations, that Compeer so relied, and in doing so suffered losses of approximately $35 million USD, for which a summary judgment in favour of Compeer is appropriate,” he wrote.

“I also find Mr. Ray Price, president and a director of those entities, personally liable, with those entities, for those losses.”

The scheme came to light last year after Compeer froze the accounts associated with Sunterra’s U.S. companies and alleged that kiting was occurring.

Lema’s decision noted that in 2024, about $6.3 billion in intercompany transfers were moved back and forth.

Sunterra has remained open while operating under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act and trying to restructure.

In Canada, Sunterra’s lender, National Bank, also filed a claim against the company, but Lema ruled it couldn’t be proven.

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The two organizations issued a statement Feb. 3 saying they are concerned about the reductions, particularly at Nappan, N.S., Quebec City and Lacombe, Alta., and they offered suggestions on how some of the research could be saved.

“We recognize the fiscal pressures facing the federal government; however, the cuts will have far-reaching impacts for cattle producers, the beef industry, consumers and Canada’s efforts to grow the economy and diversify export markets,” they said.

In the last 10 years, beef producers have increased their research contributions by more than 600 per cent as an investment in future economic growth and competitiveness, the statement said. Public-good research is essential where market incentives are limited or independent expertise is required, it said.

WHY IT MATTERS: Cuts and closures at Agriculture Agri-Food Canada and Canadian Food Inspection Agency have been announced as part of the federal expenditure review. The industry has denounced the cuts, saying they will limit Canada’s ability to innovate and compete.

CCA president Tyler Fulton said research capacity can’t easily be rebuilt.

“Canada’s beef producers rely on a stable, high-performing public research network to deliver the tools, evidence and innovations that keep farms resilient, food safe and our sector competitive,” he said.

“When research capacity is lost, it isn’t quickly rebuilt. Cattle producers and the public pay the price for years and even decades.”

The loss of programs at Nappan, Quebec City and Lacombe will all affect forage breeding, which is the foundation of the beef industry.

Work at Lacombe led to extended grazing practices that helped producers cut winter feeding costs and survive the BSE crisis, the statement said.

Researcher Vern Baron at Lacombe did much of this work and more recently began collaborating with others in Quebec to develop higher-yielding winter hardy alfalfa varieties. At Nappan, grazing management research and new forage varieties have been adopted across the country.

Researchers at Lacombe also developed the beef instrument grading technology currently used worldwide.

Closing Lacombe means Canada has lost its only meat science program “and will not have the scientific expertise needed to address questions of grade equivalency in any of the foreign export markets the Canadian beef sector is hoping to diversity into.”

Lacombe also housed a food safety team.

CCA and BCRC said if the cuts go ahead as they stand, they want critical capacity and programs transferred. These include moving the national carcass quality and grading research program to the University of Guelph, where there is a federally inspected research abattoir.

They said they understand the lead Lacombe food safety researcher may be transferred to Lethbridge and want that confirmed.

They want forage breeding at Nappan and Quebec City maintained or transferred.

And, they want industry investments refunded if Agriculture Canada chooses to cancel projects midway through their terms.

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The Agriculture Union represents 4,500 of the approximately 6,400 CFIA workers.

A union press release issued Jan. 28 said 1,370 jobs will be cut due to the federal government’s austerity measures. There were no details yet on where and when the cuts would occur and which operations would be affected. However, Agriculture Union president Milton Dyck said cutting food safety leads to obvious outcomes.

“More people will get sick from preventable food-borne illnesses, more poultry and livestock will die from avian flu and other diseases, and our food production industry will suffer,” he said.

The union said staffing at CFIA has declined three per cent in the last 10 years, compared to the overall 30 per-cent rise in the federal public service.

It noted U.S. president Donald Trump’s administration has also gutted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, putting the quality of imported food in doubt as well.

It also cited a media report saying the CFIA can’t handle multiple emergencies.

Dyck said food recalls rose by 150 per cent in the last decade. The government is putting short-term savings ahead of health, he added.

The CFIA has not yet responded to a request for more information.

Job cuts affect meat, poultry inspection

In a letter to staff obtained by Western Producer, CFIA president Paul MacKinnon said decisions were guided by four principles: protecting front-line inspection capacity and emergency readiness; not reducing positions without reducing work; staying focused on the core mandate of food safety, animal and plant health, science and emergency response; and simplifying the structure for clearer accountability and faster decisions.

A screenshot, provided by the union, of where savings will occur indicates the highest number of jobs affected, at 299, are categorized as “realignment for clear accountability.”

However, 117 jobs related to meat inspection operational efficiencies are impacted and 98 are cut for poultry slaughter inspection modernization.

Forty job cuts represent reduced daily shift inspections in non-export meat plants.

Effective April 1, the agency will also have a new organizational structure.

“The agency will move to a business-line model focused on Food Safety and Science, Animal Health, and Plant Health, supported by a Policy, Trade and Business Enablement Branch,” MacKinnon wrote. “This structure will better align accountability with the risks we manage, and the outcomes Canadians expect from us.”

He also said established employment transition processes will be used, including voluntary departure and selection for retention.

“My commitment is to minimize impacts, proceed with fairness and respect, and offer concrete support to impacted employees,” he said.

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The organization said the announcement after the prime minister’s visit to Beijing is positive.

“SaskOilseeds applauds government efforts at all levels showing leadership on this file. We support free, open trade for canola,” it said.

The tariffs for canola seed are to drop to a combined rate of about 15 per cent. Right now, the combined rate is 84 per cent.

Canada ships about $4 billion worth of seed to China each year.

The agreement also means canola meal, lobster, peas and crab will not face anti-discrimination tariffs after March 1.

Canada also expects China will accelerate the resumption of exports of Canadian beef, pet food, animal genetics and other products, according to the federal government.

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