The document discusses the decline of rural populations in Iowa, linking it to farm policies and the shift from family farms to industrial agriculture, particularly CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations). It highlights the negative socioeconomic and environmental impacts of these changes, including increased poverty, unemployment, and community deterioration. The author advocates for restoring family farm structures, fair pricing, and sustainable practices to improve rural economies and populations.

1. By Brad Wilson 10/15/22 Brad’s county/district project is linked here: https://familyfarmjustice.me/2022/07/31/you-
cant-fix-sustainability-without-justice/. This slide show is in the 2nd District folder. Photo (no house) Delaware.
2nd District Rural Decline: Population
Rural Population Decline Followed the Decline in Farming Since the Parity Years

2. A Republican Congress ended the programs in 1996, after decades of decline. Programs also included Acreage Reductions, as
needed to prevent overproduction, & Price Ceilings, backed up by Reserve Supplies, to protect consumers.
Congress Reduced & Ended Price Floor Programs
Farm Bills moved away from the Democratic New Deal toward Republican approaches.

3. ✤ Agribusinesses & other corporations lobbied for
Congress to reduce Price Floors, to eliminate
2,000,000 farmers and farm workers within 5
years!
✤ Source: Committee for Economic Development,
“An Adaptive Program for Agriculture,” 1962.!
✤ One goal was cheaper labor for the cities.!
✤ Republicans were their leading supporters,
voting for even much bigger reductions,
continuing over a longer period of time.

4. 01
✤ 1993: “We have wisely continued to
adopt policies.... the elimination of
small towns and the rising cost of
entering into production agriculture
are the result.”!
✤ “The Food Production System in Iowa, Gaining
World Market Share,” Iowa Animal Agriculture
Council in collaboration with the Iowa Business
Council, January 1993.!
✤ 1995: ”Smaller places must realize
and agree that unequal development
expenditures may well be necessary
for everybody's success.... Those
[larger regional] centers are where
investment must be made."!
✤ John Chrystal, "The Future of Iowa," p. 243 in
Family Reunion: Essays on Iowa, Thomas J.
Morain, editor, 1995.
Iowa State University,
et al, Business Interests
✤ 1962: “Need Programs to Facilitate the
Migration of Surplus Farmers Off
Farms.” !
✤ “Appraisal of the Federal Feed-Grains Programs,”
Research Bulletin 501, Agricultural and Home Economics
Experiment Station, Iowa State University of Science and
Technology, January 1962, with North Central Regional
Publication, (10 additional universities).!
✤ 1986: “In most years since World War II
there has been a need to move excess
resources out of agriculture . . . labor
resources.”!
✤ “Policies and Programs to Ease the Transition of
Resources Out of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension
Service, Iowa State University, May 1986 (still available at
ISU Extension publications in 1998).

5. 01
✤ “...A reductionist philosophy of
life…. Results in nihilism, against
which a reaction formation is then
built up, namely cynicism.”!
✤ Viktor Frankl, The Unconscious God, p. 130.!
✤ “The gas chambers of Auschwitz
were the ultimate consequence of
the theory that man is nothing but
the product of heredity and
environment… I am absolutely
convinced that the gas chambers of
Auschwitz, Treblinka, and
Maidanek were ultimately prepared
not in some Ministry or other in
Berlin, but rather at the desks and
in the lecture halls of nihilistic
scientists and philosophers.!
✤ Viktor Frankl, The Doctor and the Soul, p. ix.
“Nothing But”
“Excess Resources”
!
Reductionism, Nihilism, Cynicism
✤ “ …We are dealing here with
one of the most crucial
problems of our age-- the
transformation of men into
numbers on a balance
sheet. . . .”!
✤ Erich Fromm, May Man Prevail: An Inquiry
Into the Facts and Fictions of Foreign Policy,
(Garden City, New York: Anchor Books,
1961, 1964), p. 197. Refers to Herman Kahn’s
statements (On Thermonuclear War,) about
how many millions dead in a nuclear war
would be “acceptable.”

6. Colored sections indicate changes away from the Price Floor Programs of the Democratic New Deal. These programs
have always been needed, because free markets fail for agriculture, on both supply and demand sides.
Iowa Farm Income Declined
The decline has come with U.S. farming decline, with the Decline of farm Price Floor Programs.

7. The Family Farm Movement has protested against these changes for decades.
Farmers Have ProtestedVigorously
Picture is from the National Crisis Action Rally of 1985. The 1960s & 1970s saw even bigger events.

8. The biggest CAFO subsidies are paid by farmers, not taxpayers, in the form of cheaper & cheaper farm prices.
Cheap Prices Subsidized Loss of Livestock to CAFOs
Over time, with cheaper grain prices, most farmers lost all value-added livestock & poultry to CAFOs.

9. 01
Decline in Economy,
Population,…
✤ “Social scientists report that industrialized
farms are related to relatively worse conditions
for the following community impacts:”!
✤ “Socioeconomic Well-being Lower relative
incomes for certain segments of the
community… greater income inequality… or
greater poverty. Higher unemployment rates.
Lower total community employment
generated.”!
✤ “Social Fabric Population: decline in local
population size where family farms are
replaced by industrialized farms; smaller
population sustained by industrialized farms
relative to family farms. (+ 9 additional factors
of decline.)”!
✤ “Environment Eco-system strains: depletion
of water, other energy resources.
Environmental consequences of CAFOs:
increase in Safe Drinking Water Act violations,
air quality problems, increased risks of
nutrient overload in soils.”!
✤ Curtis W. Stofferahn “Industrialized Farming and Its
Relationship to Community Well-Being,” 2006.
✤ “Virtually every study done on the subject
in the past 20 years has confirmed the
inevitable negative community impacts of
CAFOs. Research consistently shows that
the social and economic quality of life is
better in communities characterized by
small, diversified family farms.”!
✤ “A 2006 study commissioned by the North
Dakota attorney general’s office reviewed
56 socioeconomic studies concerning the
impacts of industrial agriculture on rural
communities.” (See right column,
emphasis added.)!
✤ John Ikerd, “CAFOs and Rural Communities.” https://
inmotionmagazine.com/ra08/ikerd_cafo08.html

10. Hypothesis!
The Decline is seen 1st on the farms,
then in the rural towns, then in the
County Seats and smaller cities, and
last in the biggest cities. (What
happens to farmers in one decade may
not show up until later.)!
✤ Top right: The Loose Brick bar in Clarence.!
✤ Bottom left: fallen bricks behind a
barricade in Olin.!
✤ Bottom right: fallen brick hazard in
Rhodes, protected by barricade.

11. Farming areas outside of towns, (not shown,) declined even more. See charts below.!
New Hartford, Butler County, is Iowa Senator Charles Grassley’s home town & county.
RuralTowns & Counties Declined
Iowa population rose much more slowly than US population, (declining in the 1980s).

12. Date
Population Decrease: ButlerTowns
Note that the biggest decline was during 1980s farm crisis. Declines have continued.

13. Date
Town Population in Butler County (2020 % of 1980)

14. *County seat. ** Rural Towns, without county seat. ***Rural Remainder is county minus all towns.
Butler Comparison (with Rural Remainder)
The “Rural Remainder,” out side of towns, went down the most.

15. Date
Iowa’s New Congressional Districts

16. Since 1980 and since 1950 the 2nd District has had the least increase of the 3 districts that increased in population, (1st,
2nd, & 3rd). It rose by less than the state average since 1980, but more since 1950. The 4th District decreased on each.
2nd District Since 1980: Up 2%
The district declined in population in the 1980s, (by more than 53,000,) & didn’t surpass 1980 until 2010.

17. A previous chart showed the rate of increase of U.S. population over 70 years, (since 1950: 217% or a 117% increase). !
That would have increased 2nd District population by 594,045, to 1,363,239 (177% or a 77% increase).
2nd District: 594,045 More @ U.S. Rate
The 2nd District’s increase contrasts with the U.S. Rate of Increase.

18. Iowa’s electoral college votes has followed this trend downward since 1950.
Iowa Has Lost Clout Since 1950
Iowa has lost half of it’s members of Congress. 8 in 1950, 4 in 2020.

19. Date
Since 1980: 2nd District COUNTIES
More Rural = Less Increase, More Decline.

20. There are some surprises here.
Since 1980: 70 Iowa CountiesThat Lost Population
U.S. population increased by nearly 50% since 1980.

21. Note the change before and after 1980.
2nd District County Comparisons (Since 1950)
Rural Counties: way down! Border counties, (near the biggest cities,) also down!

22. Date
Since 1950: 69 Iowa CountiesThat Lost Population
U.S. population more than doubled since 1950.

23. Date
Since 1980: 2nd DistrictTOWNS
The 2nd District, below the state average, with rural towns way down.

24. Date
Since 1980: 67 County SeatsThat Lost Population
Sometimes population moved toward county seats, but not so much in rural Iowa.

25. Date
2nd DistrictTown Comparison (since 1950)

26. Date
Since 1950: 39 County SeatsThat Lost Population
Trend: county seats have done better than rural towns and whole counties.

27. See the 10 towns, (excluding Manchester, county seat,) on the next chart. !
Delaware is the home county of Iowa Senate Ag Chair Dan Zumbach.
Population Decrease: DelawareTowns
Note the continuing declines in the 2000s.

28. Date
Town Population in Delaware County (2020 % of 1980)

29. *County seat. ** Rural Towns, without county seat. ***Rural Remainder is county minus all towns & cities.
Delaware Comparison (with Rural Remainder)
The “Rural Remainder,” out side of towns, had the steepest decline.

30. See the 6 towns on the next chart. Buchanan is served by Iowa Senate Ag Chair Dan Zumbach.
Population Decrease: BuchananTowns
Manchester, the county seat, (not shown,) also declined.

31. Buchanan is currently represented by Iowa Senate Ag Chair Dan Zumbach. In part it’s a bedroom county, because it borders
both Black Hawk County, (which includes the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Metropolitan area,) and Linn (Cedar Rapids).
Town Population in Buchanan County (2020 % of 1980)

32. *County seat. ** Rural Towns, without county seat. ***Rural Remainder is county minus all towns.
Buchanan Comparison (with Rural Remainder)
The “Rural Remainder,” out side of towns, had the steepest decline.

33. Population Decrease: PoweshiekTowns

34. See the 6 towns on the next chart.
PoweshiekTowns Decrease Since 1950
Note the increase during the 1970s, when farm prices were higher.

35. Date
Town Population in Poweshiek County (2020 % of 1980)

36. *County seat. ** Rural Towns, without county seat. ***Rural Remainder is county minus all towns.
Delaware Comparison (with Rural Remainder)
The “Rural Remainder,” out side of towns, had the steepest decline.

37. See the 8 towns, (excluding Mason City and Clear Lake,) on the next chart.
Population Decrease: Cerro GordoTowns

38. Eve
Town Population in Cerro Gordo County (2020 % of 1980)
Even Mason City declined in population! Clear Lake, a resort town, did better.

39. *County seat. ** Rural Towns, without county seat. ***Rural Remainder is county minus all towns.
Cerro Gordo Comparison (with Rural Remainder)
The “Rural Remainder,” out side of towns, had the steepest decline by far.

40. Date
Population: 4 Districts Since 1950
The 4 Congressional Districts stack up to make Iowa population by Decade.

41. We’ve repeatedly seen connections between farm policy, the farm economy and population. The temporarily higher farm prices from the
1970s, (see The Great American Grain Robbery,) and the ongoing lower prices, correlate repeatedly with rural & Iowa population changes.
Conclusion: Losing Money, Less Population
Following the 1970s, we’ve usually lost money on farm exports. Not good for population.

42. 01
✤ Below right we see the usual chart
comparing increasing farm size (more than
double since 1950,) with fewer farms (less
than half). An increasing gap and crisis.!
✤ Top right we add another figure, % decline
in the number of farms with “value-
added” hogs. While many are left at 42%,
hardly any are left with hogs, at 3%. The
main story, the MACRO story!!
✤ Bottom right we add a 4th statistic: the
size of hog farms, a big increase gone viral
since 1992. Again, the real main story!

43. Date
AgBiz Lobby: Huge for a LongTime

44. Farm Bureau & National Pork Producers Council are “farmer front groups” that lobby against the core interests of farmers.!
They lobby for low farm prices, where farmers subsidize CAFOs & AgBiz & lose value-added livestock to CAFOs.
Huge AgBiz Lobby (with CAFOs)
Tyson, Smithfield & Cargill have major CAFO operations.

45. 01
How many of Iowa’s hogs
have been owned by:!
✤ Chinese Smithfield!
✤ Brazilian JBS!
✤ Canadians!
✤ Murphy (North Carolina)?

46. Q. What’s Needed? (On Multiple levels.)
There are multiple causes of rural population decline, of course, but the farm economy, the resulting structure
of agriculture, and the impact on rural communities plays an enormous role, as dozens of studies have shown.
✤ While we can’t know what rural population could have been, it’s clear that it could have been
much greater, had federal and state policies been supportive of our rural economy, rather than
reducing it so much. We could have maintained Democratic farm programs and improved
upon them, and supported value added livestock for Iowa farmers rather than for CAFOs.!
✤ Level 1: Restore the diversity of the Family Farm System. To do that, farmers must be paid
fairly, by restoring just farm programs with Price Floors and Supply Management. This helps
restore livestock to farms, especially in grazing systems, which also restores crop diversity.
Extra measures are needed to bring livestock out of CAFOs and back to diversified farms. For
example, in return for fair prices, make the biggest, least diverse farms do the biggest share of
supply reductions.!
✤ Level 2: Strongly support greater sustainability in these family farms, including humane
livestock and poultry systems. This reconciles even more values, to create even more wealth to
support farms, communities and regions.!
✤ Level 3: Strongly support local and regional food systems, to take wealth creation to the third
level, far away from the failed, anti-farmer CAFO system.