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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
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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.
- 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 Categories
Food Policy & Law
E. Coli Confessions Part I
by John Munsell | Oct 11, 2011
Opinion
Editor's Note: This is the first part in a series written by John Munsell of Miles City, MT, who explains how the small meat plant his family owned for 59 years ran afoul of USDA's meat inspection program. The events he writes about began a decade ago, but remain relevant today.
They say that confession is good for the soul. I've been involved in a series of ugly events since my plant in 2002 recalled 270 pounds of ground beef contaminated with E.coli O157:H7 and now want to admit the embarrassing truth for public review. moreTags
- advanced meat recovery
- antibiotics
- beef checkoff
- Big Food
- BPI
- Callicrate
- Callicrate Beef
- Callicrate Cattle Co.
- Cargill
- Chipotle
- Colorado Springs
- COOL
- Dudley Butler
- e. coli
- Eric Schlosser
- fast food nation
- food Inc.
- Foodopoly
- GIPSA
- HSUS
- IBP
- Industrial Agriculture
- JBS
- McDonald's
- meat packers
- Mike Callicrate
- Monsanto
- NCBA
- OCM
- Organization for Competitive Markets
- pink slime
- R-CALF
- Ranch Foods Direct
- Rick Hughes
- Smithfield
- Sodexo
- steroids
- Sysco
- Tom Vilsack
- Tyson
- U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance
- USDA
- Vandana Shiva
- Walmart
- zilmax
National News Supplement
Author Archives: Mike Callicrate
“Cow Tax” receives squeaky clean bill of health from Inspector General – REALLY???
Did the Inspector General’s office really give the “Cow Tax” and its myriad of questionable expenditures a squeaky clean bill of health? Not privileged to read the official I.G. or U.S.D.A. public release, I only heard the N.C.B.A. and their … Continue reading
It’s Still Called Stealing
By Mike Callicrate Grade and yield buying used to be called “Grade and Steal” by most cattlemen. Today, it’s called Value-Based Marketing by the big packers and their cheerleaders, like Certified Angus Beef’s (CAB) Miranda Reiman. In her March 4th … Continue reading
Tapeworm Economy Threatens Food Supply
Sucking the Life Blood from Family Farm Agriculture By Mike Callicrate | March 5, 2013 “Our ground beef comes from Stampede Meat Company in Chicago, it’s delivered by Sysco, and we need enough volume for 2,000 locations.” This was the … Continue reading
Industrial Agriculture vs. The Family Farm – University of Denver 2013 Presentation
“Let me talk about that Sodexo thing”
Mike Callicrate in a recent discussion regarding Sodexo at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Screening of American Meat, a pro-farmer documentary about chicken, cattle & hog production in America on Monday, February 25, 2013. 01:28 “I would think at … Continue reading