The Politics and Economics of Food

Corporate or Family Farm Global or Local

MikeCallicrate.com

UCCS – Winter 2013

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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.

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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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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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*All Fresh Choice Beef – USDA-ERS Data

35.0%

40.0%

45.0%

50.0%

55.0%

60.0%

65.0%

70.0%

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1950 1975

1995 1996 1997

1998

2002

2000

2006

1999

Farm share of the consumer retail beef dollar

2012

2009

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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.

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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

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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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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.”

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“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

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Emptiness: A picture of big meat packer retaliation – Why cattle feeders won’t speak out against meat packer abuses…

Callicrate Cattle Co., 1999 13

“These guys [Tyson] are nothing but old-time gangsters, thugs and thieves. They beat your brains in with their market power and take your money.” January 12, 2004, Montgomery, AL -Associated Press quoting Mike Callicrate on opening day of IBP/Tyson trial

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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/

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Farmers and Ranchers

Eaters

BIG FOOD

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BIG FOOD A dark place A lawless place A place where money and power come before people and freedom Where kickbacks and predatory pricing are standard practice

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Where family farms and ranches are bankrupted by unfair, manipulated and rigged markets It is a place where farmers become indentured servants and serfs, signing short term contracts with dishonest processors with a lifetime mortgage that will likely never be paid Where workers, animals, and the earth are abused and exploited

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It is where Pink Slime is considered "beef“ Big Food makes money making us sick and leaves us with the bill Where growth enhancing compounds are illegal in the sports, but legal in the meat we eat Where food is taken from the hungriest people and the poorest places on earth to sell to those with the most money

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It's a place where the biggest cheaters win Big food controls government agencies and has captured our universities that our tax dollars support Today's Big Food industrial food system is a full return to Upton Sinclair's Jungle

Farmers and Ranchers

Eaters

THE RANCH FOODS DIRECT SOLUTION

BIG FOOD

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

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A better , more direct route for producers ,and consumers wanting to know where their food comes from…

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Refrigerated trailer transports carcasses from mobile unit to cut plant

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Carcasses from mobile unit are cut into primals and boxed or hung for dry aging

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Putting the family farm face on industrial agribusiness

“We are the farmers and ranchers of America.” 30

Cargill, Safeway Go Locavore in Colorado

September 13, 2012 - FORT MORGAN, Colo.—Cargill and Safeway have announced a collaboration that will bring “Colorado Proud” beef products to Safeway stores throughout Colorado as part of the retailer’s Rancher’s Reserve Tender Beef line.

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Tyson launches unique new audit

program for on-farm animal treatment

10/12/12 - Tyson Foods, Inc. has launched a

company-wide auditing program to monitor the

treatment of animals by the 12,000 livestock and

poultry farmers that supply the company. 32

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.

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What we support prospers, what we feed grows!

More info at www.MikeCallicrate.com

We cannot separate what we believe from how we act in the marketplace and the broader community, for this is where we make our primary contribution to the pursuit of economic justice.

- U.S. Bishops 1986

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