Burnout and Baling: Why Farmer Wellbeing Matters Too
By October, the shine’s worn off. The long days of June feel like a lifetime ago, the students have gone back to school, and the crew is thinner. Frost threats hang in the forecast, the last cuts are staring us down, and we’ve been at it hard for five months straight.
This is the season when burnout hits farmers the hardest.
The Reality of September Farming
Crew shrinkage: When the students leave, there’s no one to replace their hands on the balers or trucks. The jobs don’t go away, they just get spread thinner.
Weather pressure: One bad frost, one rain at the wrong time, and all the planning unravels. Alberta doesn’t care how tired you are, it’ll do what it does.
Yield math: The numbers are in. This year, yields are average at best. No rain in August meant no miracles, even if September skies have been cooperative.
It’s a tough cocktail: months of work, stretched crews, average yields, and pressure to finish before the weather shuts the door.
Why It Matters
Burnout isn’t just being tired, it’s being wrung out. Farming takes grit, but grit without recovery turns into resentment and mistakes. You can’t run equipment well if your nervous system is fried. You can’t make good calls in the field if you’re stuck in survival mode.
For customers, this matters too. Behind every clean, consistent bale is a crew of farmers holding it together with fuel, coffee, and stubbornness. And if we don’t care for ourselves, we can’t keep producing the quality hay your animals depend on.
What Helps Us Keep Going
Perspective: Farming is always fickle. Yields may be lower than average this year, but being here, in the field, with barns filling up, that’s a win in Alberta.
Rest when you can: Ten minutes leaning on the truck, or a Sunday morning off the tractor, is sometimes the difference between running on fumes and running steady.
Connection: Crew check-ins, field family suppers, small reminders that we’re people first, farmers second.
Resilience: Farmers are wired to bounce back. We’ve been burned, rained out, frozen, and hailed on, AND we still show up. That’s the job, but it’s also the pride.
The Bottom Line
Burnout is real. But so is resilience. This harvest season may not be record-breaking, but we’re still here, still baling, still stacking. And in Alberta, that’s always worth something.