Jerome Rozsypal is a farmer, like his father and grandfather before him.
His father Jerry retired a few years ago, and from a manpower perspective, Rozsypal forms is a pretty small operation with just family and a couple of employees working full time, but they have crops in Jackson, Victoria and Calhoun Counties.
Jerome and his wife Brittany share two children, both of whom are no strangers to the fields.
His son Jakub, a Navy veteran, has been working on the farm since he returned from his four-year enlistment, and his father, though retired, still comes out and helps when needed. His daughter Kylie has been out to help as well when she was home from school at LSU.
A lot goes into running a farm, especially during the busier seasons. There is plenty of work to be done year-round – preparing soil, planting, protecting from pests, etc, but during harvest in July and August, Jerome may be working from 7:30 a.m. to 11 at night.
Along with market uncertainties and marketing challenges, the biggest threat to crops, Jerome said, is Mother Nature herself. Conditions must be right to even get the seeds in the ground.
“I just finished planting all my Jackson County corn and cotton,” he said.
“All of Jackson County is planted. My Calhoun and Victoria county stuff, we got the corn planted, but it got too dry to plant any cotton so we’re waiting on rain to be able to plant that.”
Too little rain and they can’t plant. Too much rain and they can’t harvest.
Other challenges come in the form of weeds, insects like aphids, and fungus.
Plus, the recent high winds prevent them from being able to spray for those things.
Though farming has always had, and always will have, its difficulties, technological advances have helped quite a bit. Jerome said tractors are now equipped with GPS to help make planting more efficient, and the equipment has gotten larger, making everything go a little faster. “It allows us to spend more time in the tractor because you’re not sitting there fighting a steering wheel all day, struggling to keep a line.”
Rozsypal has been a farmer his whole life, and loves what he does, and more time on the tractor is just fine with him. It is his favorite part of the whole thing.
“Just being able to get on a tractor and go,” he said.
“I have been sitting on a tractor since I was nine, so they’ve changed over the years, dramatically, but it’s still a peaceful place and such an enjoyment to sit on there.”
