The Politics and Economics of Food - UCCS Fall 2013

The Politics and Economics of Food

Corporate or Family Farms Global or Local

MikeCallicrate.com

UCCS – September 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.

2 "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com

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!

3 "What we support prospers, what we feed

grows." - MikeCallicrate.com

http://www.greatranchesofthewest.com/

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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

"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

*All Fresh Choice Beef – USDA-ERS Data

35.0%

40.0%

45.0%

50.0%

55.0%

60.0%

65.0%

70.0%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1950 1975

1995 1996 1997

1998

2002

2000

2006

1999

Farm share of the consumer retail beef dollar A picture of abusive market power

2012

2009

2013

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

--Thomas Frank, Wall Street Journal



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.



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


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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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.”


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

Callicrate Cattle Co., 1999 14

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

“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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http://nobull.mikecallicrate.com/2004/01/31/big-packers-are-gansters-thugs-and-thieves/

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/

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Farmers and Ranchers

Eaters

BIG FOOD


"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com 19

"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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“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.”

BIG FOOD sells: High fructose corn syrup instead of real sugar Hydrogenated vegetable oil instead of butter, olive oil, coconut oil, etc. MSG instead of real food flavors


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BIG FOOD is a dark and 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 a lifetime debt 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 health care bill Where growth enhancing compounds are illegal in 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 our government agencies and has captured our tax-payer funded universities Today's 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


http://www.deepakchopra.com/news/view/66/deepak_chopra_and_vandana_shiva_talk_seeds_and_gmos_

“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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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


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


39 "What we support prospers, what we feed grows." MikeCallicrate.com

“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


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, ranchers and local businesses, separate and safe from Big Food and Wall Street.



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The Politics and Economics of Food - UCCS Fall 2013