Mike Callicrate | No-Bull Food News

Blaming the victim – IBP CEO and President, Robert Peterson, blames the people he is stealing from for the disastrous state of the cattle industry.

This was the last time we know of that the IBP CEO spoke in front of a large crowd of producers. It didn’t go well for Peterson or the over 800 cattlemen in attendance.

Peterson  blamed the Cattlemen in the room for the broken market he and the other big meatpackers were manipulating.

Peterson and his side kick, Andy Gottshalk, didn’t hold up well to questions and comments from other panel members and producers.

To view the full conference with presentations from Bill Heffernan, Kathleen Kelley, and Mike Callicrate, go to:

1996 South Dakota Governor’s Cattle Conference Fails to Prevent Industry Decline

Who will write today’s global version of The Jungle?

NOTE: Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal was published in 2001 by Eric Schlosser. First serialized by Rolling Stone in 1999, the book has drawn comparisons to Upton Sinclair’s 1906 muckraking novel The Jungle.

Consumers have a right to know where their food comes from – It’s a national security issue.

Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper should stand with Coloradans and support mandatory COOL 

Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) for beef is back on the menu. The American Beef Labeling Act (S. 2716) is a bipartisan food security bill that would guarantee consumers know where their beef comes from by reinstating mandatory COOL. You will often hear politicians and Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack promote a “voluntary” label. We have a voluntary approach to meat labeling right now and it doesn’t work. Since 2016, the steak and hamburger you buy at the grocery store can be mislabeled. Foreign beef is labeled “Product of the USA” even though it may actually be from 20+ other countries. That’s not right and hurts us all.

Why is this happening? Congress caved to the demands of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the meatpacking cartel lobbyists. In 2016, Congress removed “beef” and “ground beef” from the existing mandatory COOL law. Lamb, chicken, fish, fruits, and vegetables continue to be labeled correctly, why not beef? Monopoly power in the meatpacking industry has control over our democracy. Just four corporations, Cargill, JBS, National Beef, and Tyson control 85% of the meat purchasing and packing market. They are putting profits over people and truth in labeling. They want to take beef from all over the world, package it up and label it as “Product of the USA” to get the highest price from consumers.

Do Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper have the courage to stand with us or will they continue to side with the WTO and the meatpacking cartel? The American Beef Labeling Act reinstates mandatory COOL and requires beef sold at retail to be labeled as to where the animal was born, raised, and harvested. Passing this bill will make a difference because:

1. It will prevent the deceptive practice of placing “Product of the USA” labels on foreign beef that continues today.
2. It will enhance our national security and make the entire U.S. beef supply chain more robust, more resilient, and more decentralized.
3. It empowers consumers to choose where beef is produced and the ability to avoid beef from countries with questionable food safety records.
4. It allows you to support America’s independent cattle producers helping revitalize rural communities and preventing the ongoing industry concentration and consolidation.

Reinstating mandatory COOL stops food fraud. This is the beginning of a longer journey to create a level playing field for producers and builds a more resilient food system. In addition to truth in labeling, we must also strengthen antitrust law enforcement by breaking up monopoly power, stop subsidizing industrial ag, and stop favoring larger plants over small processors.

The American Beef Labeling Act is a win-win. It empowers consumers to choose where they want their beef to come from and strengthens the bottom line of Colorado’s independent cattle ranchers. We urge Sen. Bennet and Sen. Hickenlooper to stand with Colorado and not the multinational corporate meatpacking cartel. They should join their Senate colleagues and co-sponsor the American Beef Labeling Act (S.2716).

Dr. Kathryn Bedell runs Roan Creek Ranch in Fruita, CO and is chair of the Western Organization of Resource Council’s (WORC) Agriculture and Food Team.

Mike Callicrate owns Ranch Food Direct in Colorado Springs, CO and is a founding member of the Organization for Competitive Markets, R-CALF, and the Kansas Cattlemen’s Association.

“We are a cost to be reduced, a resource to be extracted.” Mike Callicrate witnessed Big Ag’s exploitation of producers, workers, and rural communities, and was boxed out of the cattle market after taking Big Ag on. He knows we need a #FairFarmBill that takes power away from monopolistic meatpackers by supporting local production and consumption.

Twenty-one years ago this week, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association advised cattlemen all was well.

What was the real reason Tyson bought Iowa Beef Processors (IBP), the biggest beef packer in the world,?

“Tyson said he was attracted to IBP because he saw the company putting in place a lot of the things Tyson did 20 years ago.”

John Tyson claimed he liked IBP because it was becoming more like the chicken industry.

Did Tyson, having profitably captured the poultry supply chain, see the use of the IBP Formula as a better way to control livestock supplies without the expense and risk of owning the animals? Eliminating the capital intensive ownership of livestock, especially cattle, would show a big return on investment for Tyson shareholders. Owning the chickens and the feed, while indentured growers owned the growing facilities, the dead birds and the manure, wasn’t nearly as good a deal as what IBP had innovated with the Formula. The Formula pushed the huge investment in livestock, and the work and risk, onto ranchers and independent cattle feeders, and control of the inventory and priceless ability to manage and manipulate market prices to IBP, soon to be Tyson.

“The Formula is the equivalent of a nuclear warhead in the arsenal of captive supplies.”

The 2001 NCBA Convention was my last. I introduced myself to John Tyson as a plaintiff in the IBP lawsuit. He asked, “What lawsuit?”  I told him it was a private action based on the 1921 Packers and Stockyards Act, and if we were successful, the lawsuit could cost IBP more than it’s entire market capitalization. He said he knew all about the Packers and Stockyards Act. I responded, yes I know you do, and had it been properly enforced, you wouldn’t be where you are today in the chicken industry. He went on to blame Walmart and departed to address the convention:

When the Omaha based Federal judge, Lyle E. Strom, reversed the jury’s verdict and the $1.28 billion dollar jury award in the Tyson/IBP case, we lost our last chance to fix what little was left of the cattle market.

Walmart was likely another very good reason for Tyson’s interest in IBP. Money was cheap, and with Tyson’s cozy and nearly exclusive supplier arrangement with Walmart, the opportunity to manage and control both the supply and demand for all three major meat categories, beef, pork and poultry, was an extraordinary opportunity. Since the 1996 merger that created NCBA, the organization had been a dependable ally of the big meatpackers and could be depended on to pacify producers.

Cattlemen today, even more than captured poultry growers, have seen their equity systematically transferred to the balance sheets of the big food cartel. Tyson and Walmart, with the help of NCBA, have led the way to today’s disaster – the most concentrated, consolidated, unfair, and fragile food system in history.

Buying the largest beef packer, IBP, while cooperating with the other biggest players in the the meat industry, has worked out very well for Tyson and the meat cartel, while leaving the rest of America and the world with little choice of where food will come from?

Can we really look for solutions to come out of this week’s NCBA/meatpacker convention?

To understand more about how we got here and why we should care listen to the Charter ranch story.