Media

Corporate Farming Bill Threatens Nebraska’s Family Farms

Mike Callicrate

NEWS RELEASE February 1, 2016 Corporate Farming Bill Threatens Nebraska’s Family Farms The Organization for Competitive Markets is calling on farmers, ranchers and consumers across Nebraska to strongly oppose a bill in the state legislature that would reduce competition in the marketplace by allowing packer ownership of hogs. Nebraska is the only state that still prohibits packers from owning hogs more than five days prior to slaughter. “We can’t let this happen in Nebraska,” said OCM President Mike Read More …

LB176 Letter to Senators – February 1, 2016

Mike Callicrate

February 1, 2016 Dear Senator: As president of the Organization for Competitive Markets, I sent the Agriculture Committee a strong letter of opposition to LB176 last year. On February 2, 1999, I testified before the Legislature’s Agriculture Committee in favor of LB832, LB833, LB834, and LB835 which were later merged into the Competitive Livestock Markets Act. I testified as the owner and manager of a large beef feedlot in Kansas, and on behalf of the Cattlemen’s Legal Fund, Read More …

OCM Membership Letter 2016

Mike Callicrate

January 25, 2016 It can be said by those in the livestock industry that these are the worst of times. Whether you are an American cattleman, hog producer or poultry grower, you have felt the continued squeeze on your bottom line. It is beyond anything you have had to endure in the past. It is clear the big packers, through their industrial factory farming practices, have tightened their stranglehold on our markets driving down farm gate income. The Read More …

Important Sign-On Letter for LA School District Chicken Procurement

Mike Callicrate

OCM National Collaboration Members, On behalf of the Organization for Competitive Markets poultry committee led by Mike Weaver, I am reaching out to seek your organization’s support of an effort to ensure more locally-sourced, fair, humane, environmentally sustainable, and nutritious chicken is served in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) cafeterias. The LAUSD is the largest public school system in the state of California, and the second largest in the country. The district is considering bids for Read More …

America Returns to the Jungle

Mike Callicrate

A safe and secure food supply is essential to a free society The United States was always able to feed itself. Except for a few non-essentials like coffee, tea and bananas, we were self-sufficient. The British government, along with their corporate partner, the East India Company, saw unlimited potential to extract wealth through the American colonies. Our Founding Fathers, willing to fight for our freedom and sovereignty, risked their lives and the lives of many citizens, to save Read More …

The Beef Checkoff: A Broken and Failed Program

Mike Callicrate

Organization for Competitive Markets In the early 80’s, after several years of losing market share to other meats, especially chicken,U.S. beef cattle producers initiated a Beef Checkoff Program (Checkoff Program) to promote beef. The program came into being on the third referendum and was included in the Farm Bill in 1985 as the Beef Promotion and Research Act of 1985. In 1996, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) became the prime contractor of the Checkoff Program, receiving the Read More …

Meat of the Matter: Bigger is not better

Mike Callicrate

Article By Dan Murphy November 17, 2015 Here’s a trend producers know all too well: Corporate consolidation goes forward in the name of “efficiency,” and the end result is bad news for everyone other than management and investors. Newsflash: The Kraft Heinz Co. just announced that the company is eliminating 2,600 jobs and closing seven processing plants. That’s on top of the previously announced elimination of 2,500 administrative jobs. According to a statement by Michael Mullen, the company’s Read More …

The Return of the Beef Trust

Mike Callicrate

“You should be suing Walmart [instead of IBP], they are the problem. They tell us what they will pay and we have no choice but to pay you less” – John Tyson was at the 2002 NCBA convention to announce his intent to purchase IBP, the biggest beef packer in the world. Callicrate informed him of the cattlemen’s lawsuit against IBP for unfair market practices. “It has been brought to such a high degree of concentration that it Read More …