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“The money and political power of Wall Street has stolen America’s food system, bankrupted our farmers and ranchers, mined our soils, polluted our environment, wasted our precious water, and left us with expensive industrially produced food that makes us sick.” – Occupy Wall Street Food Day, December 2011 -
Industrial Agriculture and Urban Sprawl – A model of growth that’s made to fail. -
Ranching Reboot Episode 4, Mike Callicrate “It’s time for a third revolution against monopolies”
Above: Ranching Reboot – Episode 4 – Mike Callicrate, owner of Ranch Foods Direct, sat down with us to talk about all manner of things from cattle markets, to public food spaces, the Bander, his feedlot and the pathway he built to market.
He shares valuable lessons learned from fighting against the commodity production system and how he’s built his own pathway to the consumer.
We talk about small community slaughter plants and public meat spaces and what that could look like going in to the future. We discuss environmental challenges, the food police and what it means when a Dollar General comes to town.
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- This Cattleman's Got A Beef
Photo: Sean Cayton - 2003People producing good food from happy animals, while improving the environment, shouldn’t have to fear the government.
Photo above featured in a 2003 article: This cattleman's got a beef, Mike Callicrate and Ranch Foods Direct take on the big meat packersby Kathryn Eastburn
Author Archives: Mike Callicrate
The Gutting of Rural America – What Happened?
The rural America that once fed us dependably from family farms is seeing its last days – Abandoned farmsteads and dollar stores mark the graves of once prosperous communities There’s an economic term to describe this phenomenon, it’s called stealing. … Continue reading
The Strom decision was a defining moment in the livestock industry
Judge Lyle E. Strom died on Dec 1st, twenty years after his landmark decision to reverse the $1.28 billion jury verdict in the cattlemen’s case for fair markets, Pickett vs IBP. Between the filing of the case in 1996 and … Continue reading
Selling to the Packer – The farmer may need his head examined.
September, 1929 – The Farmers Union Herald, St. Paul, Minnesota From NFU historian Tom Giessel, Larned, Kansas
Why doesn’t USDA support our most ideal local/regional meat plants?
If we want more ideal operations like White Oak Pastures, we’re going to need to support them. USDA is already a major buyer of ground beef from the biggest meatpackers like JBS – the same meatpackers that failed us during … Continue reading
Who is Bob Peterson?
Who was the primary force in concentrating the beef industry, eliminating competition, and reducing cattle producers share of the consumer beef dollar? Who led the elimination of half a million cattle producers, 80,000 independent feeders, and most of the small … Continue reading
