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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
FARM ACTION FOCUS: THANKS TO USDA, “NO ANTIBIOTICS, EVER” MEAT ACTUALLY MEANS “ANTIBIOTICS, SOMETIMES.”
This blog was jointly produced with Farm Forward and authored by Mike Callicrate: a Colorado rancher, rural advocate, and owner of Ranch Foods Direct. If you’ve ever perused the packaged meat aisle at your local grocery store, you’ve probably noticed … Continue reading
Hiring Refugees is What They Do – It’s not out of kindness
“From the industry’s point of view, migrant laborers are ideal workers: cheap and disposable.” Companies Promise to Hire Refugees Sept. 22, 2022 The pledges were organized by a group founded by Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya. Pan Demetrakakes PepsiCo, Tyson Foods … Continue reading
What’s Smart About USDA and the New Climate Grants?
Why pay the corporations that broke it, and depend on it staying broken, to fix it? It’s painful to see grant money, not just wasted, but used against small businesses in support of the criminal global food cartel. The administration’s … Continue reading
Better Meat Requires Building Connections With New Food Partners
Comparing Local/Regional Meatpacking Infrastructure to Large Centralized Slaughter Plants Nearly 500 30-head-a-day multi-species slaughter plants, with a combined single shift capacity of 14,000, could be built for the cost of the proposed Sustainable Beef/Walmart plant in North Platte, Nebraska. Additional … Continue reading
Meatpacking Infrastructure of the Future
Will new meatpacking investment serve people or corporations? Walmart announced this week that they were buying a minority interest in the proposed North Platte, Nebraska slaughter plant, Sustainable Beef. The $325 million dollar project with the support of Walmart, and … Continue reading
