Humans, Animals and the Environment Colorado College - Winter 2016
1. Colorado College
February 25, 2016
MikeCallicrate.com
Humans, Animals, and the
Environment
Restoring a vital, mutually beneficial relationship
2. So this is where you grew up...
What happened Grandpa?
The U.S. has lost nearly half of it’s ranchers,
over 90% of it’s hog farmers and over 80%
of it’s dairymen in the last 35 years.
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"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
4. 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.
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"What we support prospers, what we feed grows."
MikeCallicrate.com
5. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
1 Timothy 6:11
7. Trucks in St. Francis, KS
Sept. 6, 2009
Old Calnon place, So. of St. Francis
Winter day on Webster St.
Meanwhile, back on the farm…
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8. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
St. Francis, Kansas - May 2013
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9. "What we support prospers, what we feed
grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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Enrollment in St. Francis schools is 50% of thirty years ago.
10. Emptiness: A picture of big meat packer
retaliation – Why cattle feeders won’t speak out
against meat packer abuses…
Callicrate Cattle Co., 1999 10"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
Callicrate Cattle Co., 1999
11. Farmers and Ranchers
Eaters
BIG FOOD
Exploiting producers, consumers, and
animals while destroying the planet
11"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
12. "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
13. "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.
14. 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 and gestation crates. Poultry
farmers have become indentured servants and debt
slaves. Pink Slime, produced with Zilmax, is now called
beef.
15. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com 15
Animal Husbandry has been replaced with Animal
Science, Ag Business, and the worship of technology
16. …but what about food,
kids, and animals?
Performance Enhancing Drugs
17. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com 17
"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
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Hog factories are dreadful prison-like places for
pigs and workers, and environmental disasters.
19. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows.“
MikeCallicrate.com 19
20. "What we support prospers, what we feed
grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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21. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com 21
“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.”
23. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com 23
24. Their grazing helps our dehydrating
planet retain moisture in the earth,
contributing to global water supplies.
Vandana Shiva – Winner of Monsanto’s “Bullshit” award
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"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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For fertile soils, happy animals, and good food, we must
recombine crop and animal agriculture on family farms.
26. 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
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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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Refrigerated trailer transports carcasses
from mobile unit to cut plant
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." -
MikeCallicrate.com
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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
35. “They sell things from somewhere else and take
the money away…everyday.”
- Francisco Chavez, Ranch Foods Direct delivery driver referring to Sysco
The industrial ag pantry is filled with…
…if you’re a shareholder?
• Human exploitation
• Animal suffering
• Environmental degradation
• Community destruction
• Family farm & rural decline
• Degenerative diseases
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
36. Your local family farm pantry is filled with…
Got a farmer? We’ll GROW your food!
Greenhorn Acres
• 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
37. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com 37
“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
The SOIL initiative – Sustaining our interdependent livelihoods
Family farmers, ranchers, and consumers working together
building new alternative connections from farm to plate
38. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows."
MikeCallicrate.com
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Planting the seeds of new life and
prosperity, from rural main streets
to urban centers.
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Creating a new community space for eaters,
growers, family farmers, ranchers and local
businesses, separate and safe from Big Food
and Wall Street.
40. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com 40