Intrepid farmer gets hands dirty
By Paula Trotter
Published: Red Deer Advocate, July 12, 2010
A loud, high-pitched ma-raw sound can be heard in the distance.
It’s the call of peacocks who are seemingly trying to ensure Mike Kozlowski doesn’t forget to mention them as he talks of all the new experiences he’s had in recent months.
“I kind of don’t hear them much anymore because I’ve gotten use to them, but they’re noisy,” he laughed during a phone conversation Thursday from Mountain Flyer Ranch near Sundre.
This ranch is the sixth stop the 26-year-old Red Deer resident has made since hopping on his bicycle in April to embark on his Steel Pony Farm Tour.
Kozlowski has done a lot more than get use to the constant cawing of the elaborately plumaged pheasants since leaving on his self-propelled adventure with the intent to work at different sustainable farming operations across Alberta.
He’s learned to cut acres of hay, milk cow and goats, tag calfs, graft a calf onto a new cow and even drive a team of oxen ploughing soil.
“It’s really cool to just steal their power,” he said of utilizing the strength of the draft animals instead of using a tractor. “Somebody I was talking to described it as poetic and I think I would really agree with that.
“It’s just you and the animals and you’re walking through the field.”
All of these new experiences have been quite a feat for a man who admitted he was never interested as a child in helping out at his uncle’s mixed farm operation near Rimbey.
But a trip to Africa five years ago led to a conversation with a local family, which was shocked to learn he didn’t have his own farm, and inspired Kozlowski to come back home and learn about Canadian food production.
One of the biggest lessons he’s learned so far during his journey is the difference between being stewards of the land and agribusiness.
“It’s giving me a really unique perspective on the food movement and I think I can see it in a way that maybe other people don’t,” Kozlowski said. “To me it’s starting to feel like a truth with a capital T.”
He is worried commercial production is excessively damaging the land and that current farming practices, which are reliant on petroleum products, will not survive once oil starts to diminish.
“I think this alternative farming, or this natural, organic or whatever you want to call it, it just makes so much sense,” Kozlowski continued. “The people who are more in touch with the land and more respectful of the land really seem to have a perspective that is so refreshing to me.
“They are excited to see a young person who kind of wants to join in that movement. And I’m excited to be able to meet these people and essentially learn from them and stand on their shoulders so that in the future I can continue to do the same thing.”
Kozlowski will take a bit of a hiatus from his trip when he comes home to Red Deer for a few days starting July 18.
He’s making the stop in order to accommodate a request from Lorna Johnson, executive director of the Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery.
She asked Kozlowski to share his first-person encounters at sustainable farms with a group of artists that will work on a new farm show to be showcased at MAG in 2011.
“He really represents the younger generation behind the new food movement,” Johnson said. “He’s kind of living that perspective and exploring those changes.”
Kozlowski will, therefore, act as a resource to the artists producing pieces for the show that will explore issues in agriculture and examine how farming has changed since 1950.
After talking with the artists, Kozlowski will hit the road again, traveling to farms primarily north of Red Deer for the last half of his journey.
He plans to wrap up the six-month tour sometime in the fall.
When he returns to Red Deer, Kozlowski wants to use all the knowledge he’s acquired through hands on experience and conversations he’s had with producers over coffee.
“I’m crazy about growing vegetables and I just want to grow vegetables that are healthy for the people in my community,” he said. “When I come back to Red Deer I’m going to be looking for land and looking for opportunities to start growing food.”
Kozlowski has been writing about his tour on his blog, www.steelponytour.ca.