Scripture portrays God as a gardener, farmer, and shepherd. It describes Jesus as “the bread of life” who invites people to the Lord’s table so they can learn to feed his sheep. It is hard to read the Bible and not see that God cares deeply about food and agriculture. Join plenary speakers Ellen F. Davis, Joel Salatin, Scott Cairns, and Norman Wirzba, and 12 workshop leaders, as we explore multiple connections between food, farming, and the life of faith. Discover how a concern for food and agriculture can deepen faith and heal our lands and communities. This event is hosted by Duke Divinity School, Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Blessed Earth, Cherokee Gives Back, The Duke Endowment, The Humane Society of the United States, and Anathoth Community Garden.

1. A Conference on Food, Farming, and the Life of Faith
September 2013
MikeCallicrate.com

2. So this is where you grew up...
What happened Grandpa?
The U.S. has lost over 40% of it’s ranchers,
90% of it’s hog farmers and 80% of it’s
dairymen in the last 30 years.
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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3. The National Security issue
no one is talking about!
Photograph from the book, Great Ranches of the West ©2007 Jim Keen, All Rights Reserved
Read a sample chapter and order the book at www.greatranchesofthewest.com – 800-363-5336
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4. Farm share of the consumer retail beef dollar
A picture of abusive market power
70.0%
65.0%
1950
1975
60.0%
55.0%
2012
1995 1996
50.0%
1997
1999
2000
1998
2006
45.0%
40.0%
The value of a finished beef animal is over $3,000
at the retail meat case. This nearly 20% reduction in the
farm share of the consumer beef dollar represents
around $600 per head loss to the cattle producer.
2013
2009
2002
35.0%
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*All Fresh Choice Beef – USDA-ERS Data
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5. Prolonged Losses to Cow/Calf Producers
U.S. Cow-Calf Returns Per Bred Cow
Returns based only on operating costs
Returns based on total costs
$200
$100
Dollar Returns Per Bred Cow
$0
-$100
-$200
-$300
-$400
-$500
-$600
-$700
Source: U.S. cow-calf production costs and returns per bred cow, USDA-ERS
-$800
Operating costs do not include: Hired labor, Opportunity cost of unpaid labor, Capitol
R-CALF USA

6. Eric Schlosser, author of the best seller Fast
Food Nation, has an apt description of the
industry.
Over the last twenty years, about half a
million ranchers sold off their cattle and quit
the business. Many of the nation’s remaining
eight hundred thousand ranchers are fairing
poorly. They’re taking second jobs. They’re
selling cattle at break-even prices or at a loss.
The ranchers who are faring the worst run
three to four hundred head of cattle, manage
the ranch themselves, and live solely off the
proceeds… Ranchers currently face a host of
economic problems: rising land prices,
stagnant beef prices, oversupplies of cattle,
increased shipments of live cattle from Canada
and Mexico, development pressures.
"What we support prospers, what we feed
grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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7. There is money in the food business…
Grocery Manufactures Association
From Walmart to Cargill, the
Masters of the Food Universe Convene!
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8. Meanwhile, back on the farm…
Old Calnon place, So. of St. Francis
Winter day on Webster St.
Trucks in St. Francis, KS
Sept. 6, 2009
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9. St. Francis, Kansas - May 2013
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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10. Enrollment in St. Francis schools is 50% of thirty years ago.
"What we support prospers, what we feed
grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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11. Emptiness: A picture of big meat packer
retaliation – Why cattle feeders won’t speak out
against meat packer abuses…
Callicrate Cattle Co., 1999
Callicrate Cattle Co., 1999
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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12. Eaters
BIG FOOD
Exploiting producers and consumers
while destroying the planet
Farmers and Ranchers
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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13. Average return on equity before tax (ROE)
Retail grocery: ROE = 21% (last 6 years)
Meat packing: ROE = 17% (last 6 years)
All Farming & ranching: ROE = NEGATIVE 0.54%
(last 13 years)
Packers--for those with sales > $500k - Before tax ROE, 2002-2009: 17.38% - source: http://www.bizminer.com/industries/Meatpacking-plants-2011/
Retail grocery--food marketing institute book - http://www.fmi.org - 2003-2009 average: before tax ROE = 20.75%
Cattle--for the farm typology "cattle" meaning primarily cattle operations in USDA/ERS annual surveys http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/ARMS/
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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14. The U.S. is now a net food importer on a value basis
The largest firms in beef, pork, and poultry are now foreign owned:
Beef – Brazilian owned
Pork – Chinese owned
Poultry – Brazilian owned
It’s The National Security
issue no one is talking about!
"What we support prospers, what we feed
grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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15. "Let us not forget that the cultivation of
the earth is the most important labor of
man. When tillage begins, other arts will
follow. The farmers, therefore, are the
founders of civilization."
-- Daniel Webster

16. "There seem to be but three ways
for a nation to acquire wealth: the
first is by war, as the Romans did,
in plundering their conquered
neighbors --- this is robbery; the
second by commerce, which is
generally cheating; the third by
agriculture, the only honest way,
wherein man received a real
increase of the seed thrown into the
ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the
hand of God in his favor, as a reward for his innocent
life and his virtuous industry.“
Benjamin Franklin, "Positions to be Examined Concerning National Health," April 4, 1769

17. "The husbandman that
laboreth must be the first
partaker of the fruits"
- St. Paul
This inscription appears over the portico
of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
headquarters in Washington, D.C.
USDA has assisted BIG FOOD in driving
family farmers and ranchers from the land.

18. Normalizing the Unthinkable - the gradual turning away
from the natural path from God’s garden to our tables
The policy-driven transition from family farm agriculture,
it’s good stewardship, husbandry, and healthy food, to
today’s destructive industrial food system, was planned
and managed over the last fifty to sixty years.
Once nutritious whole grain bread is now unhealthy, highly
processed Wonder Bread. Family hog farmers have been
replaced with hog factories using gestation crates. Poultry
farmers have become indentured servants and debt
slaves. Pink Slime, produced with Zilmax, is now called
beef.

19. Animal Husbandry has been replaced with Animal
Science, Ag Business, and the worship of technology
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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20. Performance Enhancing Drugs
…but what about food,
kids, and animals?

21. "If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures
from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men
who will deal likewise with their fellow men."
- St. Francis of Assisi, Roman Catholic friar, founder of the Franciscans Order
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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22. Hog factories are dreadful prison-like places for
pigs and workers, and environmental disasters.
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23. "What we support prospers, what we feed
grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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24. “Despite the intervening
century, with it’s dizzying
array of technological
advances and dramatic social
reforms, meat and poultry
processing early in the
twenty-first century is
regrettably reminiscent of
what Sinclair (The Jungle
1906) described early in the
twentieth.”
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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25. THE RANCH FOODS DIRECT SOLUTION
Eaters
BIG FOOD
Farmers and Ranchers
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26. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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27. Their grazing helps our dehydrating
planet retain moisture in the earth,
contributing to global water supplies.
Vandana Shiva – Winner of Monsanto’s “Bullshit” award
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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28. “Our cow dung is worth more
than your Wall Street stocks.”
-Vandana Shiva speaking to Hillary Clinton in India
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29. For fertile soils, happy animals, and good food, we must
recombine crop and animal agriculture on family farms.
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30. A better, more direct route for producers and consumers
wanting to know where their food comes from…
Mobile meat processing unit and portable corral system at
Callicrate Cattle Co., St. Francis, Kansas - September, 2013

35. Slaughtering animals where they are raised means:
- More humane treatment
- Less stress means better quality meat
- 37% less weight transported to market
- Slaughter waste becomes valuable soil nutrients
- Increased rural employment
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36. Refrigerated trailer transports carcasses
from mobile unit to cut plant
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." MikeCallicrate.com
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37. Carcasses from mobile unit are cut into
primals and boxed or hung for dry aging
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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38. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows."
MikeCallicrate.com
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39. The industrial ag pantry is filled with…
…if you’re a shareholder?
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Human exploitation
Animal suffering
Environmental degradation
Community destruction
Family farm & rural decline
Degenerative diseases
“They sell things from somewhere else and take
the money away…everyday.”
- Francisco Chavez, Ranch Foods Direct delivery driver referring to Sysco
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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40. Your local family farm pantry is filled with…
Greenhorn Acres
Got a farmer? We’ll GROW your food!
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Love
Good health
Great taste
Family meals
Community
Good stewardship
Good husbandry
“Eating local means more for the local economy. A dollar spent
locally generates twice as much income for the local economy.
When businesses are not owned locally, money leaves the
community at every transaction.”
- Marcy Nameth, Arkansas Valley Organic Growers
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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41. The SOIL initiative – Sustaining our interdependent livelihoods
“In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the
common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them
by labor, and enjoy their fruits. The goods of creation are destined
for the whole human race.”
– Catechism of the Catholic Church
Family farmers, ranchers, and consumers working together
building new alternative connections from farm to plate
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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42. Proposed Colorado Springs Public Market - Creating
a new community space for eaters, growers, family
farmers, ranchers and local businesses, separate
and safe from BIG FOOD and Wall Street.
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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43. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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