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.

The post Anonymous peer support platform gives farmers a safe space to talk appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Applications for the foundation’s 2026 Community Fund for Mental Health opened on March 30.

In 2026, the fund will provide rural and agricultural communities with access to Talk, Act, Listen, which is Do More Ag’s flagship mental health literacy workshop.

WHY IT MATTERS: Canadian farmers face persistent stressors that take a toll on their mental health.

Through this workshop, participants can build confidence in starting informed conversations about mental health, develop practical support skills and strengthen local networks to help individuals and families thrive.

The program is designed to recognize the unique stresses in agricultural life.

In 2025, the community fund received applications from nearly 80 communities across 11 provinces and territories with 42 workshops delivered across seven provinces.

Non-profit community groups and organizations based in rural and agricultural regions can learn more at Do More Ag Community Fund.

The 2026 application period closes April 30.

The post Do More Ag to fund rural groups’ mental health workshops appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Wilkie grew up in Calgary, where he lives today.

“Like many young men in Canada, I had a dream of becoming an NHL hockey player, and that’s where I focussed all my efforts and energy. I was fortunate to have some success at an early age, and get really close to living my dream,” he said.

At 17 years old, Wilkie moved to the Prairies for hockey. He lived in rural Saskatchewan and played for the Western Hockey League’s Swift Current Broncos. As a young man growing up on the Prairies in the 1970s and 1980s, he was never taught to express his feelings.

For the last 20 years, Wilkie worked with I Got Mind, which helps people understand what happens to them after trauma, or when they are dealing with mental stressors.

On Dec. 30, 1986, the Swift Current Broncos were on their bus on the way to Regina. About five minutes out of Swift Current, the bus hit a patch of black ice and went off the road. The bus flipped over. Four Swift Current Broncos perished that night.

“For those of you who were around at the time, and those of us who’ve read about it since, we know a traumatic event like that can have real impact,” said Massie. “I think your story resonates even more strongly again nowadays, because we have a slightly more recent (Humboldt) Broncos tragedy,” she said.

Wilkie said none of the surviving players knew what to do after losing their teammates.

“We didn’t know how to talk about it. It was a very difficult time. It’s very dark. Nightmares, reliving the trauma, having to get back on the bus 10 days later. All those things were extremely difficult for all of us, not just the players, but the coaches, the fans and the billets,” he said. “It impacted everybody.”

“I think that’s what I’ve learned about trauma, is that it may have happened to me, but it still can affect you, and until we understand that it’s hard to create those connections with people. What we went through in Swift Current, it taught us a lot about the darkness and where it could take us, but most importantly, how can we feel better in these moments?”

Wilkie found it difficult to continue after the accident.

“The darkness, being alone at the night was really tumultuous,” he said. “In one minute, I could feel so excited about the path and the direction and what I was learning, and then in the next, fear and worry if I could pull it off.”

Love helped Wilkie along his path of healing. He met his wife and had a daughter.

“When I knew I was going to be a father, that’s when I knew I had to work hard to get my life together, because if I was going to be a role model and responsible for raising this young life, I needed to do better.”

He began to find ways to rebuild, through conversations, books, seminars and training.

By starting to help people, he learned many people do not have a healthy perspective of what they have.

He practiced the attitude of gratitude and would write down three things he was grateful for every day when he woke up.

“Was it easy?” he said. “It was just different. I try and tell people not to look at it as difficult because it’s not. It’s just different. When we can adopt that, it’s easier to take those steps forward in the moments they are presented to you.”

Wilkie said reflecting in the morning helped him see the good things in his life, including relationships, opportunities, how he felt, and the places he got to go and see.

It changed his mindset and helped him when days were challenging.

Culture change

Massie asked Wilkie what it was like to cultivate a culture of wellbeing.

“It takes a commitment of everybody you know trying to be the best version of themselves. If we’re truly going to change the culture, then we need to understand and we each need to do our part. The only way healthy communities are built is people working hard at being healthy themselves,” he said.

Some people want to help others but are not in a good space to help.

“If we’re going to build a healthy culture, then we have to do the work ourselves, and when we do that, it’s amazing the impact that it starts to have on other people,” he said.

Wilkie played hockey for 14 years and was 30 when he retired. He had no other training.

“I tried a couple of things, and it was really when I was coaching young hockey kids that I started to see where my trauma started, and the disappointment and the struggle. I started working with these kids and having different conversations about their attitudes and their mindsets and how they communicated. I started to see a significant change,” he said.

Wilkie trained as a life coach and travelled across North America, speaking to a variety of audiences about mental wellness.

Wilkie eventually assembled a team of 15 which includes of psychologists, mental health clinicians, and training facilitators to join I Got Mind.

“These are experienced people, whether they are retired hockey coaches, or teachers or business leaders. We have young athletes coming back in to work with the even younger athletes,” he said.

“It’s been a real evolution in being able to support people who need different things,” he said.

Wilkie said his sessions with groups start with being vulnerable and sharing stories and experiences. This attitude is practiced with anyone from youth sport teams to community leaders.

“It’s the vulnerability that starts different conversations, giving people permission to talk about what they struggle with and how it affects them,” he said. I Got Mind was actively visiting teams after the Humboldt Broncos crash, touring communities and talking about mental health. The pandemic put an end to that.

I Got Mind worked with Trilight Entertainment to make a documentary accident. The documentary, which is based on a book of the same name is “Sideways; a story of trauma, resilience and healing.”

“It helps us even more in the community and starts conversations that need to happen,” said Wilkie

He hopes people are inspired by the story, which shows what the players went through, but also how they were able to be resilient and become Memorial Cup Champions two years later.

“Trauma happens to all of us. We live in a chaotic world,” he said. “When we see people do amazing things and overcome great things, we want to listen to them, because we’d like to do that ourselves,” he said.

“I think that people need to understand that you don’t ever fully recover from things that happen to you,” he said.

I Got Mind has shown the documentary in various communities and have gotten great reactions. They’ve done a showing with the Drumheller Dragons hockey team and other organizations that want to bring them in.

“When communities find out, and they think they could benefit, they just reach out to us at igotmind.ca and then we work together to get people out to watch the story,” he said. People can check the website to find out how they can watch the documentary online, available November 4.

“When we are connected, we can communicate and when we can communicate, we can solve problems, and those are three of the most important things we need to do,” he said.

I Got Mind has created four special scholarships to remember the boys who perished in the Swift Current Broncos accident. One of them is an agricultural scholarship, to honour player Brent Ruff, who grew up in Wetaskiwin and whose family was heavily involved in agriculture. More information on the scholarships can be found online.

I Got Mind has also created an online community on their website, and can be followed on social media at Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Organizations who wish to book a visit from Wilkie can book him through the organization’s web site.

The post Men’s mental health advocate says sharing personal stories and communicating crucial to mental health appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“AgTalk is an online space. I describe it as farmer coffee row, within the larger, powerful online space called Togetherall,” said Merle Massie, executive director of the Do More Agriculture Foundation.

AgTalk was launched in 2023 as a two-year pilot and has been renewed until 2027.

In the past two years, there have been more than 10,000 interactions from within AgTalk.

Aside from Togetherall, AgTalk has several funding partners: RBC, BASF and the McCain Foundation.

AgTalk is completely anonymous and is accessed through an online portal.

“It’s an important space. Let’s imagine you’re at home on your farm and you’ve had a tough day and you don’t feel like you can talk about what’s going on with you, or how you’re feeling with the people around you, because you work with them all day, and maybe they’re your family members,” said Massie, who farms between Biggar and Rosetown.

“Maybe they won’t understand, or you don’t want to lay that extra burden on them, but you’d still like to let it out because you’ll feel better if you do. AgTalk becomes a space where you can do that, because it’s peer to peer,” she said.

The top issues discussed on AgTalk are stress, depression, anxiety, loneliness and relationships.

The space is populated by farmers and people who understand agriculture.

“You say what’s on your mind and share what’s been happening with you, and then other people can read and respond, and it’s just like any other kind of online social media sharing site,” she said.

“It’s a centralized space where you can share what’s happening with you and read about what’s happening to other people. Maybe you can provide some advice, maybe you can hear some advice, just like you would on coffee row,” she said.

Massie said AgTalk gives people a safe space to talk about mental health.

“We know that it’s true that there are lots of communities or farm families where a conversation about mental health is not welcome,” she said.

People can chat in AgTalk by typing, as there is no oral component.

“We call it community at your fingertips,” she said.

Massie said AgTalk offers an option to farmers who may not be in crisis but may need some peers to talk to.

“We all have regular stresses and conversations. There’s stuff that happens to all of us. We’re not all in that binary of either we’re well or we need to call a crisis line. We’re regular people with regular lives and sometimes we just want to share what’s happening. That’s where AgTalk really shines,” said Massie.

In case someone needs more help, there is 24/7 clinical backup on AgTalk. Users can reach out to the clinicians if they want.

The clinicians will not interfere unless they are needed, but they are present on the site.

They can offer a one-on-one conversation with people who need to talk things out and help them access higher levels of support.

“Maybe they just want to have a little bit more understanding of an issue. The Togetherall platform does have the ability to escalate that and connect them with a call line so they can speak to someone one-on-one or even access 9-1-1 and send someone to them,” she said.

All the partners have been promoting the site, and there has been a rise in people signing up.

“We think we’re reaching the point where it’s going to tip and become a huge gathering place,” she said.

Togetherall and AgTalk have created a super peer training.

“These are people who really enjoy the platform, and who really want to reach out to one another. Again, it’s all anonymous, so it’s very simple to do. You’re not revealing anything about yourself. But some people want to take additional training so they can feel confident in their ability to interact with one another. If that’s something that people are interested in, they can feel free to reach out to me (merle@domore.ag) because I will be putting another cohort of super peers through their special training this fall,” she said.

The easiest way to find the AgTalk website is to go to the Do More Agriculture website and click on the AgTalk link. On the Togetherall platform, people can also join other chat groups, read articles and do some additional courses and learning.

Massie said most farms are businesses that don’t have employee assistance programs. AgTalk can help provide that support.

About 66 per cent of AgTalk users say they have no formal support outside of AgTalk.

About 33 per cent of users have no formal supports at all, which means they don’t have anybody that they feel comfortable talking about their mental health with.

Massie said the site is reaching across the generations, with users between the ages of 16 to 85 years. The site also attracts a diverse group including Indigenous people and people of colour.

“Agriculture across Canada has lots and lots of people who come from different countries and different backgrounds, and it’s a growing number,” she said.

The post AgTalk, an online “coffee row” for farmers, has been renewed for two more years appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“I explain AgTalk as the farmer coffee row… backed by trained clinicians. Anyone involved in agriculture is welcome,” said Do More Ag executive director Merle Massie in a news release.

“You don’t have to be in crisis to find AgTalk useful and powerful. We are proud to work with our partners to build a space where people can be themselves, and welcome, without masking what they’re feeling and pretending to be OK.”

BASF Canada, the RBC Foundation and the McCain Foundation have renewed commitments to support AgTalk, which is backed by online mental health support community Togetherall.

The platform provides a safe, anonymous space for people over the age of 16 to connect, share struggles, stories and advice, and to receive support, according to Do More Ag’s website. It’s monitored around the clock by clinicians.

Do More Ag launched the platform in 2023. Since then, AgTalk has seen more than 10,000 interactions, the news release says.

The top five issues for AgTalk users mentioned are stress, depression, anxiety and relationships.

More than 60 per cent of AgTalk users are not receiving any formal mental health support and one third of users don’t access any mental health support outside of AgTalk. One in three users had considered suicide.

“In agriculture, where long hours, unpredictable conditions and high stakes are part of daily life, talking about mental health can be difficult. Too often, members of our community face these challenges in silence and feel isolated. That’s why platforms like AgTalk matter,” said BASF Canada vice president Leta LaRush.

The post AgTalk farmer mental health support platform sees partnership renewed appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“None of us have to be alone with our thoughts. There is power in connecting with each other, in finding the right support, and it all starts with a conversation,” said Lauren Martin, chair of Do More Ag’s board of directors, in a news release this morning.

AgTalk is an anonymous, free online platform in which people can discuss mental health and find support from their peers. It’s moderated by mental health professionals.

In the news release, Do More Ag said a recent national survey of farmer mental health, led by researcher Andria Jones-Bitton, found that while 58 per cent of farmers meet the criteria for anxiety, and 75 per cent reported mid to high stress levels, 40 per cent are hesitant to seek professional help due to the fear of judgment.

Further research found that mental health stigma and lack of anonymity were the main barriers to producers seeking help.

This highlights the need for open conversation about mental health in agriculture, the organization said.

Do More Ag launched its #TalkItOut campaign today, which will combine social media outreach, advertising and print media, to draw more attention to the issue.

Find the AgTalk platform on Do More Ag’s website.

The post Agriculture community invited to ‘talk it out’ about mental health via free online platform appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.