National Disabled Farmers Entrepreneurship and Leadership Network

The Canadian Farmers with Disability Registry (CFWDR) is building a National Disabled Farmers Entrepreneurship and Leadership Network. The members of this private network will be disabled farmers due to injury or illness across Canada.

An injury or illness can suddenly place a farm family in an unknown situation. Local friends and family may not have the understanding or knowledge to help. This is a common situation for many farm families dealing with a disability. Suddenly, the disabled farmer and their family are isolated without the ability to rely on their existing community to provide answers.  The network will be designed to allow these people the opportunity to find support from other disabled farmers across Canada.  Disabled farmers would post questions to the network or search for existing answers. Other disabled farmers and industry experts can provide answers and assistance. This will greatly assist with bringing together disabled farmers.

The network will be a community to connect all disabled farmers across Canada. As a member of the network, the disabled farmer's community grows.  Instead of having nobody in their local community to help them with their situation, they have hundreds of people that can completely understand their situation. Someone from BC can have the opportunity to reach out for help and the assistance could come from someone in Newfoundland or vice versa. Disabled farmers can help other disabled farmers and provide information. This information and experience would be unique to only someone that has experienced the challenges created by a disability and not available anywhere else.

Members of the network would have the option to join anonymously.  It will provide an opportunity for farmers across Canada to connect online with their desktop computer, mobile device, cell phone(text messaging), and/or landline phone. The software will hide the personal contact information of people using the system regardless of how they choose to access the network to protect privacy.  Because members will be able to access the network using a cell phone or landline, Internet access will not be a requirement to access the network. Therefore, access will be open even to farmers in remote areas.  Disabled farmers and their families will no longer feel isolated.

The mandate of CFWDR is not just to help support disabled farmers but to help them succeed and grow their farm. The network will ask industry experts to provide information on helping disabled farmers to successfully grow their business. Entrepreneurship and leadership information will be available specifically to help disabled farmers.