a restorative approach to family farm agriculture and prosperous rural communities - rural life day,...

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Rural Life Day December, 2013

By Mike Callicrate

A Restorative Approach To Family Farm Agriculture

and Prosperous Rural Communities

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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

the government was taken over by

corporate interests.

It was an interesting

experiment, and for

a short time

provided hope for

mankind, until

Rural Life Day - December 2008

In serving our share holders interests:

We sent your good jobs overseas to cheaper labor markets

while increasing our executives compensation

We shuttered your vital manufacturing industries and

outsourced the production to other countries

We merged, consolidated and concentrated entire sectors

of your economy, eliminating competition and reducing

your choices

“Greed is Good!”

Rural Life Day - December 2008

Our national chains preyed upon your communities and boarded up your main streets We are mining your soils and polluting the environment Our profits are our highest priority - - more important than the well-being of our workers or food animals We have nearly eliminated your family farmers and ranchers in favor of a more “efficient” global farming and food system You are now consuming our factory food, causing unprecedented degenerative diseases and increased health care costs Thanks for your investment and support, we are now in full control and are too big to fail.

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/

*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 A picture of abusive market power

2012

2009

2013

Grocery Manufactures Association

There is money in the food business…

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From Walmart to Cargill, the Masters of the Food Universe Convene!

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

10 "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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Enrollment in St. Francis schools is 50% of thirty years ago.

Tapeworm Economics - Selling things from somewhere else and taking the money away everyday.

http://nobull.mikecallicrate.com/2013/03/06/tapeworm-economy-threatens-food-supply/

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

Callicrate Cattle Co. January, 1999

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/


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The U.S. is now a net food importer on a value basis

The largest firms in beef, pork, and poultry are now foreign owned:

It’s The National Security

issue no one is talking about!

Beef – Brazilian owned Pork – Chinese owned Poultry – Brazilian owned

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

--Thomas Frank, Wall Street Journal

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Potential Customer

Small Colorado

Cedar River Farms

Small Colorado

Cedar River Farms Our natural approach to raising purebred, specially fed cattle improves the flavor, tenderness and consistency of our Cedar River Farms brand. We manage the feeding of a single breed of cattle from birth to produce beef that is superior in terms of tenderness and overall palatability.

Family of Zombie Brands

http://www.cedarriverfarms.com/

http://nobull.mikecallicrate.com/2009/06/04/how-mavericks-became-zombies/

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.


“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/

"What we support prospers, what we feed grows." - MikeCallicrate.com 27

Animal Husbandry has been replaced with Animal Science

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Losing our appetite…

http://www.kansascity.com/beef/


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…but what about food,

kids, and animals?

Performance Enhancing Drugs

http://nobull.mikecallicrate.com/2010/05/27/what-happened-to-the-meat-the-barnes-and-noble-test/


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When we lose our markets, we lose our freedom!

The untold story of how the administration tried to stand up to big agricultural companies on behalf of independent farmers, and lost.

Obama’s Game of Chicken

http://www.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/articles/2012 Nov - LK, Obama%27s Game of Chicken, WM.pdf




"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.


“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.”

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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


"Well-designed polyculture systems, incorporating not just grains but vegetables and animals, can produce more food per acre than conventional monocultures, and food of a much higher nutritional value," Pollan wrote. "But this kind of farming is complicated and needs many more hands on the land to make it work.”

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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

38 Bred heifers at Callicrate Cattle Co.

“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

Farmland equal to the size of India and China combined

has been abandoned since WWII due to the loss of soil. - David Montgomery, author of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations


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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

Farmers and Ranchers

Eaters

THE SOLUTION

BIG FOOD

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http://www.humanesociety.org/about/state/agcouncils/colorado_agriculture_council.html

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Locally sourced protein tops 2014 trend forecast Next year, restaurants will be all about local sourcing, environmental sustainability, and nutrition, according to predictions released by the National Restaurant Association. The number one trend predicted in the survey is locally sourced meat and seafood, while environmental sustainability came in third, children's nutrition came in in seventh place, and farm/estate-branded items barely made it into the top ten. Environmental sustainability was also the most popular choice for the hottest menu trend 10 years from now, followed by local sourcing, health and nutrition, children's nutrition, and gluten-free cuisine.


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

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with the idea from the beginning.” - Mac Planck, Nobel Prize winning physicist

MoblieMeatProcessing.com

Renewable Harvest’s Original Prototype Fall 2012 at Flying B Bar Ranch

Callicrate Cattle Co. Mobile Meat Processing Unit

September 2013



Movable Kill Box Live Weight Scale

240 volt box


Prewash and Bleed Area

Portable knock box for hogs, lambs, and goats


Movable kill box with scale and portable cattle handling corral


Hide is pulled as carcass is landed on rail

Jib Hoist swings animal into unit and lands on skinning cradle


Carcass Wt. Scale

Anti- Bacterial

Spray

Carcasses must be at or under 44 degrees in 24 hours


Area for quartering, final trim, and inspection

Seal for transport truck or trailer docking

Hide door

Gut door

Mechanical and storage area

480 volt Electric Carrier cooling unit

High intensity lighting throughout unit

60 ft. semi-trailer (retrofitted from an IBP Tram Trailer used for hauling half carcasses from small independent plants into IBP’s box plants)

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Refrigerated trailer transports carcasses from mobile unit to cut plant

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

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.


a restorative approach to family farm agriculture and prosperous rural communities - rural life day,...

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