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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
Search Results for: District 11
Meat Market Slaughter – What happened to a fair, open, and competitive marketplace that once served both producers and consumers?
The Coronavirus has exposed the abject failures of a highly concentrated and centralized industrial food system. Following is some history of how we got to this place that we can no longer feed ourselves. Six years after the following 1990 … Continue reading
Colorado Springs Business Journal: Rancher-retailer has a beef with Big Food
by Jeanne Davant | November 1, 2018 Raising and selling top-quality meats puts bread on Mike Callicrate’s table. But activism feeds his soul. The owner of Ranch Foods Direct has been a passionate advocate for family farmers and small businesses … Continue reading
The Wichita Eagle: Kansas needs solutions that help farmers and keep our water clean
by Mike Callicrate and Karen Stillerman | August 30, 2018 The Kansas town of Pretty Prairie has gained national attention for the wrong reason: as documented by Harper’s Magazine earlier this year, this community of 600 has a tap water … Continue reading
Flimflam men are still faithfully serving corporate interests.
(The letter published below is written by A.M. Kinney, vice president of the Kansas Farmers Union, and former editor of this paper. Let us hope he writes letters to “Jonas” and that he lets us read the letters.) Hon. Jonas … Continue reading
National Farm-to-School Month: Highlighting Cutting-Edge Programs
National Farm-to-School Month: Highlighting Cutting-Edge Programs The dark side of Farm-to-School While Food Tank celebrates Farm-to-School initiatives, there’s a darker side of the story that is at risk of being overlooked. Ranch Foods Direct has been in business in Colorado … Continue reading
