Rural Life Day Speakers Focus on Corporate Control of Food Production

The annual Rural Life Day in Jefferson City, Missouri was held December 7 at the Alphonse J. Schwartze Memorial Catholic Center with keynote presentations from Prof. Marie George of St. John’s University and Mike Callicrate. The conference focused on sustainability and ethics of food, farming and ranching. Rural Life Day was organized by Catholic Charities of Northwest and Central Missouri, an organization that started two years ago.

The small group I traveled with from Kansas City drove to the conference starting at daybreak driving along state highway 50. East of Sedalia the road changes from a four-lane divided highway to two lanes to Jeff City. During this part of the trip the road winds through picturesque hilly farmland. 

It's an area that has supported farming and food production for generations. This is the same route my Dad took when he worked part-time for a chicken ranch in high school in the early 1940s, riding a train from Sedalia to St. Louis, watering chickens along the way.

How did this paradise change over the years to hide some of the danger and destructive elements of food production?

Mike Callicrate - Alternative Kansas Rancher/Farmer

Mike Callicrate speaking at the Rural Life Day conference

in Jefferson City on December 7, 2013.

Mike Callicrate, an outspoken Kansas rancher and entrepreneur, answered this question by laying bare how corporate control of food production has devastated family farming and small communities.

Callicrate's message shares a personal story of the decline of farming and ranching in the northwestern Kansas town of St. Francis, where the population has declined drastically, leading to a 50% drop in the student population over a 30 year period.

As a rancher and businessman he detailed the negative aspects of industrial meat production, shedding a light on the worst practices of animal cruelty with gestation crates used on pigs, massive beef cattle feedlots, growth hormones, as well as dangerous working conditions and low wages for meatpackers. 

As a rancher and meat processor, he takes his insider role further than many individuals by sharing his encounters with leaders of the major grocery store chains and food producers. He displayed images of corporate excess by showing photographs of tail numbers of executive jets parked on the tarmac at an annual Grocery Manufacturers Association conference held in Colorado Springs. He demonstrated his nerve when he cornered John Tyson, CEO of Tyson Food, about a price-fixing lawsuit against the food giant -- and that was over 10 years ago.




He talked about how Walmart has monopolized retail grocery business and pressured food producers on pricing. This pressure from Walmart forced small grocers to close. When the last grocery store 30 miles away in Goodland, Kansas closed, Callicrate said, "Walmart raised meat prices 18%." The downfall of local grocery stores is completed when "Walmart feeds on the prey. Dollar stores clean up the scraps," he added.

Callicrate revealed the massive profits in the grocery and meatpacking business with retail grocery stores reaping a 21% return over six years and meatpackers earning 17% over the same number of years. He underscored the greed in the food business by suggesting food giants like Smithfield sold out to Chinese buyers because they saw the handwriting on the wall with public opposition to gestation crates, recruiting and transporting low-wage workers from 100 miles away from workplaces, and feedlot ponds that are spoiling community water sources.

His presentation focused on the dismal nature of food production, where, he said, the film "Food Inc threw the curtain open" on an "awful industrial food system." He also highlighted emerging and successful efforts to turn things around. He discussed efforts at establishing public markets as hubs in a new food production model, citing the success of Pike Market in Seattle, Public Market in Milwaukee, as well as big plans to establish a public market in Colorado Springs. "There is no city in America more messed up than Colorado Springs. That's why we want it there," said Callicrate.

Professor Marie George - On the Ethics of Food Production and the Environment

The keynote presentation by Marie George focused on the spiritual and Catholic connections to sustainability and the environment. She implored conference participants to become stewards of environment - join a nature group, recycle your trash or unused items such as bicycles, share tools, work to end poverty, volunteer, donate, and more.

She underscored that cheaper food is not necessarily the best choice, citing how community-supported agriculture producers are better stewards of the land.

She noted that even well-meaning groups that pressure food corporations to produce healthier products may be missing the mark. The production of low-trans fat palm oil may be better for American diets, but is destroying rainforests in Malaysia.

George acknowledged the tough task of pressuring food giants to adapt to consumer demands, like removing GMO ingredients from food, by recalling how consumers fought and won against the Tobacco Lobby.

Pressure on Poor People

During the break in the conference I spoke with a woman who reinforced a myth about the diets of low-income families. She runs the women’s ministry at a local Jeff City church and works with low-income women seeking assistance at their food pantry. One routine of the ministry is to guide the women on a grocery store tour, sharing tips on economical shopping and nutritious meals. 

I understand the value of this nutrition information, but we ask a lot of poor people by requiring these types of activities for food assistance. There is already heavy pressure on people seeking food and other types of temporary assistance without burdening them with required nutrition education and drug testing, which many states are planning to do. 

Missouri and Kansas both make the list of states requiring drug tests for public assistance, with Kansas requiring the drug test in 2013. Why not look elsewhere for what options are available for healthy food access for poor people? This is exactly what the Food Inc. film does.

After Marie George's Powerpoint presentation she showed about 45 minutes of the full-length film Food Inc before commenting on the the movie. The film discussed the myth that diet habits are based on poor choices by reflecting on the significant marketing of major food flavors -- fat, salt and sweet -- underpinned by the nearly universal use of high-fructose corn syrup. The gist of the film is that food corporations have set up the food industry to remove healthy food options to maximize profits, and calls on people to pressure these corporations to change.

Joe Maxwell - Advocate for Widening Debate on Farm Bill

Panel participants (from left): Judy Heffernan, Mary 

Hendrickson, Melinda Hemmelgarn and Joe Maxwell

Joe Maxwell, former Lieutenant Governor of Missouri and self-described pig farmer, expressed an urgent need for more participation in the debate over the Farm Bill during the panel session of Rural Life Day. He suggested the bill should be called the "food bill" because the name excludes a great majority of public citizens who have a stake in safe, healthy and affordable food. 

He used strong visuals to describe the effort needed to change the direction of the Farm Bill, noting the loss of one million farmers during his lifetime.  "We won't have the food system we dream of unless we change policy," Maxwell stated, suggesting food and farm advocates will need to "penetrate the line" established by food corporations and their lobbyists. He added that major food corporations place wedges between advocates, such as dividing farmers from animal advocates, and said "putting aside our differences" will help in the struggle.