Viking, Alta. – Brian Rozmahel remembers clearly the day two years ago when he knew his life had to change.
The 43-year-old farmer from Viking, Alta., had just come back from a week-long mountain trip with a youth group. They’d spent a glorious week whitewater rafting, climbing and mountain biking.
When the group arrived back in Viking, a parent met him in the parking lot and told him that while Rozmahel was away it had rained an inch and the price of grain had gone up.
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It was good news, but it got him thinking about the unpredictability of farming.
A week later he was at Augustana University College in Camrose finding out how he could become a teacher.
“The farm’s not sick, but the way we farm is sick.”
He said farmers can’t continue to live each day desperate for rain or a rally in grain prices.
For the past year and a half Rozmahel has driven 52 minutes each way from his farm just north of Viking to Camrose to learn a life other than farming.
“There’s something wrong if I can’t make a living on seven quarters of land and 200 cows. Something is fundamentally wrong,” said Rozmahel, who refuses to take a job off the farm to subsidize his operation.
“I started to question what’s wrong with the system. I started to question if I was just like a lemming following the pack.”
As a church youth worker for the past 20 years, Rozmahel could see how the growth in farm size affected everything in small towns from the church and curling rink to schools and hospitals.
He didn’t want to continue on the treadmill that added to the decline of the small town he loved.
Rozmahel was questioning his increased use of herbicides as a result of direct seeding. His time at university amplified his doubts.
His courses in world development, environment and globalization have allowed him to see how his farming methods may have an impact around the world.
“The development courses made me look beyond my farm. Are my decisions affecting things in other countries?” said Rozmahel, who chose a specific coffee shop for the interview because it served fair trade coffee, which is supposed to offer farmers a fair price for their product.
“They’re farmers there like me. They need a fair dollar for their coffee.”
He called his previous semester the “data of doom” when he learned about AIDS, the thinning of the ozone layer and the politics of third world countries. The information scared him, yet he couldn’t ignore it.
“If you don’t, you keep walking and whistling. Maybe too many guys are whistling and not looking at the issues,” said Rozmahel, who pauses and wonders if he sounds too radical for a prairie farmer.
“The struggle I’m having is finding a
balance.”
While Rozmahel is seeking the ground between accepted prairie politics and his new education, his wife Dodi is not as happy with the unconventional thoughts.
“It’s a fun place to be, but it scares the heck out of my wife,” he said. No longer is the Rozmahel family with four kids just another farm family struggling along.
“It’s like being a pink penguin. You stand out,” said Rozmahel, who sold 200 cattle last year because of the drought.
Instead of continuing to plant a crop every spring, Rozmahel plans to seed his seven quarters of land to grass and buy animals each spring to graze it.
With fewer input costs, he can afford to take a reduced income. By selling the machinery, he can continue to pay for his education. Last year he raised a few chickens and turkeys to sell locally. This year he’ll add vegetables and plant a few fruit trees.
“I get excited about rural life when I think of all the possibilities. I love farm life. I love the rural life,” said Rozmahel, who figures he knows almost everyone in Viking.
