Catholic conferencedenver2013

Eating is a Moral Act How food choices impact planet, people,

animals, health and community

Catholic Media Conference June 2013

By Mike Callicrate

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“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

Where does your food come from?

"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

"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

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

The National Security issue

no one is talking about!

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http://www.greatranchesofthewest.com/

Grocery Manufactures Association

There is money in the food business…

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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

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…



St. Francis, Kansas - May 2013

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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.”


“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


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

http://nobull.mikecallicrate.com/2010/08/02/history-repeated/

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/


http://www.bizminer.com/industries/Meat-packing-plants-2011/







http://www.fmi.org/

http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/ARMS/

“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

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/catechism/index.cfm?recnum=6237

"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.

Farmers and Ranchers

Eaters

BIG FOOD Exploiting Producers and Consumers


October 19, 1893 - Tiller and Toiler Newspaper, Larned, Kansas

"Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists."

- G.K. Chesterton

Barry Lynn's Cornered is... "A manifesto for our time."

--Thomas Frank, Wall Street Journal

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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 22


Animal Husbandry has been replaced with Animal Science


"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

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.

25 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


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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

Their grazing helps our dehydrating planet retain moisture in the earth, contributing to global water supplies. - Vandana Shiva

28 Bred heifers at Callicrate Cattle Co.

37%

“Our cow dung is worth more than your Wall Street stocks.” -Vandana Shiva speaking to Hillary Clinton in India

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Jacek Popiel’s garden in Colorado Springs, fertilized with Callicrate Cattle manure


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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

http://nobull.mikecallicrate.com/soil/

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8567.Wendell_Berry

http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1984458-the-unsettling-of-america-culture-and-agriculture

“…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

http://vimeo.com/user2462681

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?

Farmers and Ranchers

Eaters

THE SOLUTION

BIG FOOD

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“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

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/reports/the-economic-cost-of-food-monopolies/

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


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.



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Catholic conferencedenver2013