Connecting Producers to Eaters Presentation at 3rd Annual Western Colorado Fo...
Catholic conferencedenver2013
1. Eating is a Moral Act
How food choices impact planet, people,
animals, health and community
Catholic Media Conference
June 2013
By Mike Callicrate
2. 2
“Agriculture is a business, not a way of life!”
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
Teaching of land-grant institutions from
around forty years ago to present
4. "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
5. "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
8. N7100C – Cargill
N199HF – Hormel Foods
N97SJ – J.M. Smucker
N1897S – J.M. Smucker
N135FT – Albertson’s
N46E – Hunt
N604CL – Hershey
N654CM – Crossmark Corp.
N457H – Bank of America
N606RP – Nestle Purina Pet Care Co.
N102CX – Clorox
N545CS – Wells Fargo
N604MU – Dean Mfg. Group
8"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
9. 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…
9"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
10. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
St. Francis, Kansas - May 2013
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11. America: Becoming a Land Without Farmers
Evaggelos Vallianatos, September 10, 2012
“The plutocratic remaking of America has a parallel in
the countryside. In rural America less than 3 percent
of farmers make more than 63 percent of the money,
including government subsidies.
“The results of this emerging feudal economy are
everywhere. Large areas of the United States are
becoming impoverished farm towns with abandoned
farmhouses and deserted land. More and more of the
countryside has been devoted to massive factory
farms and plantations.”
11"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
12. “You should be suing
Walmart [instead of
IBP], they are the
problem. They tell us
what they will pay and
we have no choice but
to pay you less.”
- John Tyson, 2002
12"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
13. Emptiness: A picture of big meat packer
retaliation – Why cattle feeders won’t speak out
against meat packer abuses…
Callicrate Cattle Co., 1999 13"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
14. 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/Meat-
packing-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/
14"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
15. “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
16. "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.
17. Farmers and Ranchers
Eaters
BIG FOOD
Exploiting Producers and Consumers
17"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
19. "Too much capitalism
does not mean too many
capitalists, but too few
capitalists."
- G.K. Chesterton
20. Barry Lynn's Cornered is...
"A manifesto for our time."
--Thomas Frank, Wall Street Journal
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21. 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.
21"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
22. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com 22
23. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com 23
Animal Husbandry has been replaced
with Animal Science
24. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com 24
"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
25. For a person to be a serf in a more humane hog
factory is not the answer for man, pig or eater.
Family farmers want to be good stewards, but
they need the income that fair, open and
competitive markets provide. They deserve a fair
share of the food dollar.
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Pigs at Callicrate Cattle Co.
Modern industrial production
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Family farmers care
FOR their livestock
Richard and David Nameth, Greenhorn Acres, Fowler, CO
Patrick Hamilton, Venetucci Farm,
Colorado Springs, CO
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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We domesticated farm animals,
we owe them good care.
“I raise hogs. I don’t produce pork.”
- Joe Maxwell, Missouri family hog farmer
28. Their grazing helps our dehydrating
planet retain moisture in the earth,
contributing to global water supplies.
- Vandana Shiva
28Bred heifers at Callicrate Cattle Co.
37%
29. “Our cow dung is worth more
than your Wall Street stocks.”
-Vandana Shiva speaking to Hillary Clinton in India
29
Jacek Popiel’s garden in
Colorado Springs, fertilized
with Callicrate Cattle manure
30. "What we support prospers, what we feed
grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
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“The soil is the great connector of lives, the
source and destination of all. It is the healer
and restorer and resurrector, by which disease
passes into health, age into youth, death into
life. Without proper care for it we can have no
community, because without proper care for it
we can have no life.”
― Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture
31. “…the key to a healthy food system lies in maintaining the
immense local and regional bio-cultural diversity of seeds
and traditional farming methods.
“If we are really going to address these complicated
issues around climate change and food production, then
we need to follow the people who are most connected to
the land, for these are the people who have cared for and
nurtured this environment for thousands of years.”
A new film: The Farmer, The Architect and The Scientist
The ABN and The Gaia Foundation | June 12, 2013
32. The current system has led us
to totalitarianism –
concentrating wealth and
power to the disadvantage
of most citizens.
How do we devise a system
that increases choices and
possibilities, not just for
farmers, but for every member
of the community?
34. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com 34
35. “Future farm policy should focus on access to fair
and open markets that benefit farmers, workers,
consumers and the marketplace. At every point in
the food chain, there are a handful of companies
squeezing profits out of farmers, wages out of
workers and choices out of eaters. A more vibrant
marketplace with more choices for farmers and
consumers is essential, but it cannot happen
without breaking up the agribusiness cartels.”
- Food and Water Watch, November, 2012 - The Economic Cost of Food Monopolies
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
36"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
37. Proposed Colorado Springs Public Market - Creating
a new community space for eaters, growers, family
farmers and ranchers and local businesses,
separate and safe from BIG FOOD and Wall Street.
"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com
38. "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com 38
