34 minute read
HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
LIVESTOCK &
Sunrise Farm— Developing a Regenerative Farm in Alberta
BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
In 1983 Don Ruzicka, his wife, Marie, and their three children, Anna, Matt and Paddy, followed their dream of moving back to the farm that Don’s maternal grandparents had settled in 1915. Don’s grandparents, Frank and Rose Swoboda, took a chance that there were greater opportunities in western Canada for farming; they sold their livery business in Fairdale, North Dakota in 1910 and headed to Flagstaff County in Alberta. The farm they settled on is located northwest of Killam, Alberta.
“Every morning when I go out on the deck of our house, especially in the wintertime, I think about my grandparents and how they must have been very strong, tough people. The cold weather they had to go through, without electricity or the airtight heaters we have today, was certainly a challenge. People often talk about how tough their grandfathers were, but I also think about the grandmothers who cooked meals 24/7 and had to endure a lot of hardships,” says Don.
It is from that heritage that Don and
Marie have developed Sunrise Farm, persevering through hardship and challenges to create a farm that produces healthy animals, food, and land.
The Journey to the Farm
Don grew up on another farm about a mile and a half across the section from the farm his grandparents settled. “My parents had a mixed farm with hogs, laying hens, broilers, turkeys, beef cattle and grain. My older brother and my sister went away to get an education when I was in grade 10, and my younger brother was 11 years younger than me, so when harvest time came my mom ran the combine, my dad ran the grain truck and baled while he was waiting for the truck to fill up, so I would come home from school and do all the chores. My mom had everything waiting for me to put
into the oven and I milked 16 cows and did everything else that needed to be done while they were working on the harvest,” he recalls. In 1967 when he finished grade 12, he left the farm to go to university. As he was driving down the driveway he made a vow that he would do something else and not farm. “It was a good place to grow up, but I never wanted to do this again; I was determined to look for greener pastures,” says Don. “My rearview mirror on the 1960 Ford I was driving as I went down the driveway didn’t have that statement ‘Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear,’ but if it had, it would have been so true! I would have said there was no way I was coming back, but that farm in my rearview mirror was actually closer to me than I thought!” Don went to university, and during the summers worked at a logging camp on the west coast of Vancouver Island. “In life, all the places that you’ve been and the work that you’ve done leave an impact/impression on you in one way or another. When I went to work at the logging camp, I parked my car near the ocean, got on a float plane that flew me into the logging camp, and as the plane took off it circled the town. There was a big sign there that said ‘This forest is a managed forest. For every tree that we log, we plant three to replace it.’ “For me, that statement was the beginning of an ethic, realizing we have to care for the environment—no matter what we do in life. I was so impressed with what they were doing in the logging industry in 1969 when I went to work there—logging much more conscientiously than they are today in Canada,” he says. “I worked there for a few years and met Marie when I came home for Christmas one year (she was from Don and Marie received Emerald Award from The Land Stewardship Center in 2011 for their efforts of stewardship. Edmonton). We dated for a couple years, and then got married. We bought five acres on the west coast of Vancouver Island, between Ladysmith and Nanaimo. I had been reading books on how to build a log house, so we built a small log cabin (22 feet wide by 32 feet long, with a loft) and it was gorgeous,” says Don. Their first child, Anna, was born there in 1978. He worked for a tree-service company, falling, topping and pruning trees over houses and power lines. “Workers from that company stopped
by our place one day to ask permission to trim some trees, and during the conversation I mentioned that I had just finished logging for six years and was looking for a job. The guy told me to check in at their office just down the road and that with my experience I could probably start in a month. I went down there, filled out an application, and the boss came in and asked if I was the guy they’d told him about, and told me I could start tomorrow!”
Don worked at the tree-trimming job for four years, and then Vancouver Island became too “busy” and he moved his family to northern British Columbia near the town of Smithers. This was pristine country, and they bought 80 acres near the Bulkley River. “The land had been logged off a few years before we bought it and had a beautiful log house about 2,000 feet above the valley, overlooking the river. That house was 32 feet wide and 65 feet long and we thought we’d died and gone to heaven!” he says.
Their second child, Matt, was born there, and they stayed on that property from 1979 until 1983 when the farm his grandparents settled came up for sale by his aunt and uncle. “We bought it in June 1983, after our third child Paddy was born. I had always told Marie that it was great to be raised on a farm, but I guess I forgot about all the labor involved. We moved back here to this farm, and my dad was still part-time farming, and my brother was just across the section, so we all pooled our resources and farmed together for about 12 years,” says Don.
Getting Out of Debt
While Don was glad to be back farming, things weren’t working as he had planned. “Although we had taken out a large mortgage to purchase the farm, everything went fairly well until 1989, or at least I thought so. Then my brother decided he wanted to expand and get bigger and that involved getting farther into debt. I’ve never liked to be in debt. We never had an operating loan during the first five years farming here, but after we started getting loans we were borrowing more and more. So in October of 1995, after harvest, one morning at breakfast we decided we had to do something different,” he says.
“Marie and I asked ourselves if we should continue this journey of uncontrollable debt, or sell and move, or stay and try another way of farming. I went to get the mail the next day and right on top was a leaflet that said, ‘If you would like to get off the agri-business treadmill…’ It gave a date, a time and an invitation to attend an information meeting and hear about a concept called Holistic Management. This instantly captured my attention,” Don says.
“I attended the meeting and after sharing the information with Marie, we enrolled in the eight-day course. Driving home after the last day, we decided we would sell a half section of land and get out of debt. This decision immediately starts a new paradigm because in our region if a person sells any land it means you either have another quarter section that’s closer to you or you are in financial trouble. We were in financial trouble. We were $250,000 in debt, which in 1995 was a lot of money. With this decision to sell some land comes a feeling of failure and you begin to wonder what your friends, relatives and neighbors are thinking,” he says.
The last day of the Holistic Management course they watched a video about Joel Salatin’s pasture-based farming model of multi-species grazing and how it works. “We realized that how Salatin was farming was the model we should consider adopting. This Holistic Management course changed how we farm, our quality of life, and presented us with an entirely new way of viewing the land. I knew I was handy at building things, and not afraid to work, and pretty good with animals. So we went from 55 cows and a lot of grain to 25 cows, pasture-raised poultry and custom-grazed cattle. The take-home for me personally, from the Holistic Management course, was the realization of the damage I had done to our land. I started to understand how important sloughs, wetlands, creeks and riparian areas are, and all this time we’d been getting rid of them to farm more ground, to try to get out of debt.
“Our first 12 years on the farm, we had done what 99% of farmers did back in those days; we chose the industrial model. We grew grain and raised cattle for the commodities market. But it wasn’t working. I hadn’t given much thought about wildlife habitat, but Holistic Management taught us about the ecosystem and how everything is interconnected—with all
the pieces coming together. One of my favorite sayings by Allan Nation is that we all have unfair advantages. I think my personal unfair advantage (and almost a blessing in disguise) is that we almost went broke and then took that course in Holistic Management. It taught me how to bring back the land.”
It was a huge commitment. “We thought one or two of our kids or maybe all three, were going to farm and we realized we’d better fix this mess because Marie and I can’t sell them a farm that is still in the tank,” say Don. “We wanted to get everything going again, and have worked very hard at it. We realized that Holistic Management is actually a whole farm planning-systems approach that helps farmers, ranchers and land stewards to better manage agricultural resources in order to attain sustainable, environmental, economic, and social benefits. “In 1996, I began to attend grazing tours throughout the province and met many ranchers and farmers who were applying principles of Holistic Management. One theme that surfaced on many of these tours was that if you want to stop having to treat symptoms, find the cause and address it. We had developed a plan for the farm when we took the course, and began to implement it. We fenced and cross-fenced all of our 640 acres as well as 160 acres of rented pasture with single-wire electric fencing so we could rotational graze our cattle. Timing and rest periods of grazing are important to rebuilding and maintaining pasture health.
“We’ve had a lot of help and collaboration from many people who heard about our farm and came to visit. I had begun to see the damage I had done to the land and to tell others about it. A well-known Chinese saying states that ‘When the student is ready, the teacher appears.’ Soon, the teachers appeared. Biologists, riparian specialists, agro-forestry specialists, ornithologists, entomologists, ecologists, sociologists (trying to get inside my head to see why I was taking responsibility for my mistakes), range specialists, forage specialists, wetland specialists and many others seemed to find their way to our farm and they all had a gracious way of asking how they could help me.
“No fingers were pointed reminding me of the damage I had done to the land. We took many walks around the farm to the various places where regeneration was needed, and suggestions were made. I didn’t realize it at the time but all of these people, in one way or another, were
telling me that ‘we forgive you, so now, let’s get on with the task of making things right.’ And it was so very subtle that I almost missed it.
“Some of those people we worked with over the years have become as good or better friends than our relatives. It’s been quite a journey, and we realized that if we were going to do something, grow something, it would probably be for some kind of niche market.”
Food as Medicine
In March of 1986 Don was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. “It took me awhile to realize that the stress from the enormous debt load we were carrying had developed into a disease or perhaps we should call it ‘disease,’” says Don. “I was not at ease with all the stress that was bubbling up around me and it centered in my gut.”
He chose not to have surgery to remove the problem, and sought an alternative. “I had a history of severe reactions to drugs, and thought an herbalist might have some answers involving a less invasive way of treating the problem. The herbalist who treated me at that time suggested identifying the cause, and then figuring out how to change my life and begin to heal. The herbalist referred to his method of treatment as holistic. Instead of treating symptoms, we needed to identify the cause and begin the journey to healing. I was not aware at the time that this approach was going to also be the way forward for making decisions on how we would farm,” says Don.
The herbalist emphasized the importance of reducing stress, and proper diet. “A strict diet, taking various vitamins and herbs, put my train back on track within about six weeks,” says Don. “Two parting recommendations after these treatments were to work hard at avoiding stress and since we were farmers, a quote from Hippocrates: ‘Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.’”
The herbalist mentioned the health benefits of raising poultry on pasture and removing grain from the diet of cattle. “One important ingredient that I needed for healing and to remain healthy was an abundance of omega-3 essential fatty acids,” says Don. “Raising livestock with access to healthy pasture would elevate the levels of omega-3 in the meat. How we were going to make this transition was still unclear, but the
seeds of this idea had been planted in our minds. We decided to raise organic protein, using the Salatin model. “I will soon be 70 and we’ve been mentoring young people—the next generation who want to farm. I tell them up front that to be successful they need some kind of niche for marketing the food they grow. I tell them to go to a health food store and observe what people are buying—especially on a day there is a discount for seniors. Many of them are buying omega-3 and most of it is coming from the ocean in some kind of seafood. “I do a lot of reading, and came across an oceanographer on the east coast named Carl Safina who has been studying the oceans for years. He claims that if we don’t smarten up and reduce the pollution of our water, by 2048 the ocean will be one big garbage dump and the fish that come out of it will not be safe to eat—and the omega-3 from them will not be safe.” But, another choice for healthy food, with the proper balance of omega-3 to omega-6, is grassfed/grass-finished meat. “You want the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio to be 5 to 1 (and no higher than that, in the omega-6 fatty acids),” says Don. “We’ve been able to create the right balance with all three of the proteins we produce here (beef, hogs and poultry). “Even if a person is only raising one kind of livestock, it’s wise to take a sampling of the meat to see what those levels and ratios are, even if it’s just one sample per year. Perhaps it will cost Don fences his dugouts from his cattle to keep the water clean and protect vegetation in these you $500 to do this, but this is a sample of what riparian areas. you are raising. Pretty soon people will make that connection and realize that it’s not safe to get their omega-3s from the ocean, or that it is really expensive, and discover that maybe they can buy this healthy meat from a family who is growing it. “The researcher said you can get the omega-3 supplements from the health food store, but it’s even better to get it from your food if it’s being raised in a manner that provides these health benefits. We decided that we needed some way to market our ‘healthy’ meat that would be effective and efficient. We tried going to a farmers’ market three times a month, but it was during winter and very difficult. I was up at 4 a.m. doing chores, loading the freezer into the truck at 6 a.m. and on the road by 7 a.m. We got home at 4 p.m. and had chores to do, thaw out waterers, etc. and that took all our energy. “So we decided to simply open our gates to customers and put a welcome sign at the gate; if people wanted to come for a tour, we would show them how we are farming. They could ask any question; we told them that if we don’t have the right answer then we don’t deserve your support.” Since starting this marketing method, the people who come to the farm have not only become loyal customers but friends. “We get birthday cards, Christmas cards and other communications from them, and they are like family,” says Don. “We have a cabin we built for ourselves as a place to get away for short vacations (since with our farm we can’t afford to go on exotic holidays). One day on a farm tour someone asked to see the cabin, and then asked if we would rent it out. It was very Spartan and just had a ladder to get to the loft, so I put in a staircase and we started renting it to people who want a quiet getaway place. We’ve had three authors write the final chapters to their books in our cabin, and church groups come here to do their planning—because they like the idea of how our farm was strategically planned.”
Another key paradigm shift for Don was how important wildlife habitat was for the health and productivity of his farm as well as a critical indicator of biodiversity levels. “We finished the Holistic Management course in February of 1996,” says Don. “When the snow melted in March, I saw our farm through different eyes. The prairie pastures were overgrown with sage and yarrow—signs of overgrazing. I woke up to the fact that the farm, over the years, had become increasingly silent. There were fewer species of birds. The meadowlark was conspicuously absent. We had been taught by Holistic Management that promoting and maintaining biodiversity leads to a healthy ecosystem that is more resilient to droughts and other environmental challenges.
“What I had ‘learned’ in the first 12 years of farming the industrial model had to be unlearned. There was much work to be done, and Holistic Management had given us the tools to relearn, and grasp the new concepts of rebuilding the ecosystem.” When Don started trying to improve the land, most of the native prairie was overgrazed to the point of being unrecognizable as “native prairie.” He decided to keep the cows out of some of it for a year, and for two years in areas that were in worse condition. Since many birds require healthy native prairie for habitat to raise their young, he now only grazes it in the fall after the birds have migrated.
After many years without hearing much birdsong, on May 21st, 2000, he was moving the chicken shelters ahead to fresh pasture in the early morning when he heard the unmistakable song of the Western Meadowlark. This filled him with elation, realizing that the birds were coming back. “The meadowlarks were the first bearers of good news,” says Don. “Then another prairie nesting species, the rare sprag’s pipit, joined the meadowlark in our prairie pastures to raise their young. These species of birds have become barometers that let us know if we are leaving enough litter, as they require litter to take up residence. If there is enough for them, then there is enough for our cattle. In 2001, we started placing bird houses around the farm and now have 240. We need the birds for insect control and they need us for habitat.
“We were fortunate to meet a bird lover who teaches at the local University, 50 minutes from our farm. He did the first bird survey on the farm in 2004. Nine different areas are each monitored for ten minutes by sight and sound of the various bird species. In 2004, forty-one species were documented. Since then, including 2018, ninety-nine species have been found on one or more years to be living on or passing through our farm. This increase of 150% we are very proud of.”
Riparian areas are also crucial, since they provide habitat for about 80% of all fish and wildlife for all or part of their life cycle. This was one
reason Don fenced off his streams and ponds. “These areas make up approximately 2%–4 % of the land base in Alberta, and are feeding areas that migrating birds depend upon during their migrations. They are a critical piece of the ecosystem,” says Don. The riparian areas have recovered to good health and are contributing to an increase in biodiversity on the farm. Riparian Health Assessments have scored 84% or better on three surveys since 2001 on Sunrise Farm. The creek and healthy wetland are cleaning up the water as it passes through the farm to the landowners downstream. Of particular interest to Don is the badger population on Sunrise Farm. The badgers’ holes are also used by foxes and burrowing owls, increasing wildlife diversity further. “Some people shoot these owls, but they are helpful in controlling rodents,” says Don. “A mating pair can consume 1,200 to 1,500 mice each season. We also have pileated woodpeckers, and they make nesting cavities used by other species of birds.” Don also has beavers. He used to hire someone to come in and trap the beavers, to use the hides (because he doesn’t like to see anything go to waste). “We no longer trap them, because they are another keystone species that create a lot of habitat for other animals. Bumblebees are also a valuable species. We’ve learned a lot from the ecologists who have come to our farm. They taught us a lot about the ecosystem. For instance, E.O Wilson (a world-renowned entomologist), claims that the more species you have in an ecosystem, the more resilient it becomes to Besides cattle, Don also raises pastured poultry and hogs. These hog shelters are moved twice daily to give the animals more fresh feed from pasture. environmental challenges.” Don had been planting trees since 1984, but ramped up the plantings in 2003. “Besides shelterbelts, we planted wildlife habitat areas,” says Don. “These plantings are an acre in size and consist of 10 rows of 16 different species of trees and shrubs. We planted seven of these in 2005. Then the growing concern regarding Colony Collapse Disorder and loss of honey bees gave us the nudge to plant eco-buffers in 2011 and 2012. These plantings are designed to increase diversity and biodiversity and are important to native pollinating insects—since they are also threatened by loss of habitat and by farming chemicals. These plantings consist of 20 different species of native flowering plants and 21 different species of conifers, deciduous, berry bushes and shrubs.” The various tree plantings have enticed many new insects and birds to the farm. As the trees grow, they trap snow which melts and helps the grass grow and makes its way down to the aquifer. “The plantings also provide habitat for native pollinators such as beetles, bumble bees, butterflies, moths, wasps, humming birds and bats,” says Don. “The fruits of their labor are seen in the increased yields of the legumes in the pastures.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 14
Developing Grass-Finished Genetics
Don’s cattle are Red Poll-Angus cross. When he first started his herd he found some Red Polls in southern Alberta. Over the years he has built his herd on grass-based genetics that finish nicely on grass. If they can’t find a market, they take them to the auction. However, they bring a low price because grassfinished beef is not the norm.
“We wanted to raise grass-finished beef, and at first we tried various crosses,” says Don. “Before we got into the Red Poll cattle we had some that didn’t work very well. Then we read about Gearld Fry and his thoughts on how important it is to have cows with high butterfat in their milk. Their calves have a tendency to be more resilient, mature quicker, and yield superior grassfinished beef.”
Some of Fry’s other thoughts for the ideal beef animal are that the cannon bones should be short, and there should be a dark strip down the back, and some other unique characteristics that are not sought out by the people who are showing cattle. “They would be laughing at the traits we want in our cattle,” says Don. “It’s hard to find a good bull, because most seedstock breeders select for other traits.”
However, Dylan and Colleen Biggs raise grass-fed cattle in Alberta. They brought Allan Savory to their ranch in 1986 to give a course and they started doing grass-finished beef at that time. Don has always leased some of their bulls (Angus and Angus-Gelbvieh crosses) because they cross really well with his Red Poll cows.
Because the Red Poll cattle are dual-purpose, every now and then they get a heifer calf that looks too much like the dairy side and gives too much milk. “By about her third calf her udder would be drooping,” says Don. “That’s the downside, but we’ve had exceptionally good luck with the Red Poll cattle because they dress out very well, their marbling is fantastic, and they are very docile. “We also grazed cattle for Dylan Biggs, who teaches low stress handling, and we learned a lot from him. Before that, some of our neighbors were helping us with our cattle. I didn’t really know much about cattle when we first came back here to farm, except for what I’d learned as a kid, so my neighbors said they would come and help us. Back in those days, when people weaned calves in the fall they gave them a shot of penicillin as a prophylactic so they wouldn’t get pneumonia. I Don runs a Red Poll-Angus cross of cattle that do well for his grass-finishing program. thought that if they were doing it, I would do it. So they came over and helped us, and after they left it took me about two weeks to fix all the broken corral fences. Some of them yelled and whistled and used a stock prod, and the cattle were pretty lively. I have to admit that I was quite aggressive in those days. “I didn’t know about other ways to handle cattle; I thought maybe this was the way you do it. Then I started grazing cattle for Dylan Biggs and before he brought them over here he said he never let anyone graze his cattle that hasn’t first taken his course in stockmanship.” But because they were in a drought and Don didn’t have time for the course, Dylan came to Don’s farm and showed him how to handle the cattle. Don picked up key low-stress principles quickly and Dylan left. “One of the best things we ever did was graze Dylan’s
Don has planted numerous shelterbelts or ecobuffers on his farm. These plantings provide wildlife and pollinator habitat as well as water cycle benefits.
cattle,” says Don. “We grazed them again this past year when he got into a drought. We brought in 189 head on August 11 and they were here until October 5. These cattle are such a joy to be with because they are so easy to handle.”
Some of the custom-grazed cattle Don takes in are not this gentle. Don would train them to the electric fence in a corral using a one-strand electric fence with a pop can tied onto it with about a 6-inch piece of hay wire. “When the cattle got curious and went to smell it or touch it they’d get a bit of a zap,” says Don. “Then I would walk through that corral, and once they were settled down and didn’t start running away, I would drive through there with my quad and the mineral feeder or salt block behind it. After about four days when I opened the gate and took off with the quad and the salt trough and mineral trough behind it, they followed me. I’ve also found that there were always two or three in the group that were imprinted by the previous owner and knew that a person was their friend. Now when I go out just to check the cattle and the water troughs, as soon as they hear the quad they come up to the fence and think it’s time to move.”
Dylan and Colleen’s cattle operation is also Animal Welfare Approved, so they can only buy from other farms and ranches that are also approved. “They were buying our yearlings at a premium (10 cents per pound over market),” says Don. “So instead of trying to build a market where we sell everything slaughtered as meat, we thought we would sell a few yearlings also.”
Don has learned a lot from Dylan about selecting for certain genetic traits. One year Dylan needed some heifers and Don had nine but wanted to retain some. They took turns picking heifers and Don thought he had gotten the best of the lot after they were done selecting. He asked Dylan why he had selected the ones he had and Dylan replied: “Don, its 33 degrees today (91.4 degrees F) and we’ve had a lot of heat. Take a look at those heifers I bought. There are no flies on them.”
Dylan told Don that he had been breeding for the fly resistance trait and if that trait carries on to her offspring, he can breed a good udder onto her calves (from the sire side) and keep the fly resistance. There is probably something in the oil in the cow’s hair that the flies are not attracted to. Yet this trait is often the last thing on people’s minds when selecting cattle, and this is one reason most cattle are covered with horn flies all summer. Selecting for fly resistance can be a useful goal, along with having some help from Nature.
Don also notes that they have tree swallows that eat a lot of flies. “One day when we were having a tour someone asked why all those swallows were flying over the cattle,” says Don. “I had never even thought about it, but those swallows were consuming the flies and mosquitoes. This is just one more built-in ecosystem benefit.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 16
Improving the Water Cycle Don has noted that weather patterns have become more erratic the past few years. “This year we only had about three inches of rain up until the middle of July,” says Don. “We had a few showers, and then in September we had snow, drizzle, and 5.5 inches of rain. It came slowly, which was good, but most of our rain lately has come very fast. When you overgraze, there isn’t enough vegetation to hold all that moisture and it runs off. I remember one fellow telling me that after a big rain he drove by my dugout and thought it would be full, but it wasn’t—even though his was full and running over. Mine took three days to fill up because the water went through all the litter and soaked into the ground, then what didn’t soak in finally made it to the dugout.” The land absorbed that rain like a sponge. The riparian areas, fenced off from cattle use in 1997, collect a lot of water in the forage, brush and trees and their root systems. “The people downstream from us thought we should take out a dam because they weren’t getting much water and needed the water. But I told them that if their land didn’t have much holding capacity that water (such as from spring runoff) would just keep going rather than soaking in,” he says. “I mentioned that we are not the problem, and in fact are helping store water in the riparian system. This creek is running longer through the season now because of our water storage, and the people downstream are benefiting from it. They have built dugouts now and are starting to get their dugouts full, but their pastures Don has numerous wildlife on his farm, including badgers. Old badger holes are used by other wildlife like foxes and burrowing owls. are not absorbing as much water as they could. After I took Holistic Management I wanted to tell everyone that fencing off the riparian area would be one of the best things that they could do, but it’s hard to change old habits. It was difficult for me, also.” Planning for the Future A key motivation for Don and Marie to heal and improve their land was also due to realizing that if their children were going to come back to the farm after they grew up, then Don and Marie needed to leave it in better shape than they found it. In 2013 all of them were home for Thanksgiving. “I asked if any of them wanted to come and farm,” says Don. “They’d already discussed it and said they loved what we were doing, but were happy with what they were doing, and told us to do whatever we have to do. The farm has actually been for sale now for more than a year but we’re not going to sell it to just anyone. We’ve been head-hunting, trying to find/select someone who can make use of all the positive changes.” Don has seen people be only concerned about getting the money, and
leaving when they sell their farms. But, all their efforts are for nothing if the new owner has a different idea about farming and doesn’t continue on with those goals, or just wants to subdivide the land to make more money.
“Some people think we are arrogant in being so particular about picking a new owner, but selling a farm is like selling a good horse,” says Don. “If you raised really good cutting Quarter Horses and your horse is
a winning champion and everyone was telling you what a good job you did, training that horse, you’d be a little bit particular about who you sell it to. Let’s say you are asking $15,000 for that horse, and two people came to buy it and one person offered you $14,000 and the other person was going to pay the $15,000. Then you find out that the guy offering $15,000 was going to take that horse home and hitch it on a wagon to haul feed with it, and the other guy was going to use it for chasing cows. Which person would you sell it to? That’s an easy decision. The same with people who raise good cattle dogs; they don’t want to see a good dog go to a person who yells at it and abuses it.”
Similarly, he won’t sell his land to anyone who doesn’t have good plans for it, because he cares about the land. “We call our farm the fourth child,” says Don. “Our kids are all grown and gone, and established in their own lives, but this last one has to find the right adoptees and we are looking for the right new owners.
“We wanted our kids to be successful, and they are, and now that they have decided not to farm, we want whoever comes here to be successful. We didn’t just do this for fun. There is a purpose here.”
Someone someday will benefit from all the efforts here, if Don and Marie find the right person to continue on with this farm. “We’ve had some young people come look at our farm as they have some other property to sell in a place where they paid a lot of money for it, and in the current recession its value has dropped,” says Don. “They were the third ones to show up, looking at our farm. They are farming, but also working parttime, and they are amazed at our watering system (that supplies water to
all parts of the farm) and all the efforts we’ve put into this place.” These visits continue to encourage Don and Marie to wait for the right person to come along. That commitment to transitioning the land to younger farmers is part of Don’s overall belief that agriculture needs to find a way to get young people onto the land—addressing the challenge that these young people cannot afford the high price of land. Despite the numerous challenges, Don draws hope from people like John Ikerd. “John Ikerd used to teach at the University of Oklahoma,” says Don. “One day he finished giving a presentation (teaching the industrial agriculture model) and went home that night and realized he was teaching these students to fail. Ever since then he has been on the road giving talks about regenerative agriculture and closes his presentations by saying, ‘Don’t get discouraged, because all we can do is what one person can do. If you do that often enough, pretty soon if you start adding up those ones it becomes a movement, and change happens.’” As Don and Marie progressed along their journey to heal the land, Don began to give a few talks to groups and meetings of likeminded farmers. Even though he has been doing the talking, it has been a team effort. “Marie has been a much larger part of this that most people know,” says Don. “She prefers to quietly stand back, but her insights over the years and during the evolution of our farm Don has found that planned grazing of his pastured animals has improved the have been the difference. The journey has had animals’ health as well as improve soil health and land productivity. some detours and dark days, but her faith and Here cattle are grazing a slough during a drought. encouragement have sustained the drive. She takes hundreds of pictures that are the basis of many talks and power-points that I have given over the years with regards to our journey.” In 2011 Don and Marie received an Emerald Award from The Land Stewardship Center, at the Alberta Emerald Foundation’s 20th Annual Don Ruzicka in his 1966 Mercury Truck.Emerald Awards. These Emerald Awards celebrate the outstanding achievements of Albertans committed to protecting, preserving, enhancing and sustaining the environment. Don is a humble person, and says he has accomplished all of his many achievements mainly just to survive, as well as enhance the environment and habitat on his farm. He likes to keep everything simple and efficient on his place. For instance, the truck he drives is a 1966 Mercury. “Farming should be as simple as this old truck,” says Don. “It has no computers; I can fix almost anything myself. I carry a crescent wrench, a multi-use screw driver, a pair of pliers, vice grips and a hammer. When asked what I use the hammer for, my reply is to ward off anyone who tries to steal my truck!”
