This document discusses rural population decline in Iowa's 3rd Congressional District since 1950. It shows that rural towns and counties experienced much steeper population declines than urban areas like Des Moines. Several factors contributed to this decline, including the end of price floor programs for farmers in the 1990s and the growth of large concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which drove small farmers out of business. Restoring diversity and fairness to the agricultural system through policies supporting small family farms could help reverse rural population loss and strengthen rural communities.

1. By Brad Wilson 10/15/22 See links here: https://familyfarmjustice.me/2022/07/31/you-cant-fix-sustainability-
without-justice/. This slide show is in the 3rd District folder. Photo: downtown Churdan, Greene County.
3rd 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!
✤ Republicans were their leading supporters,
voting for even much bigger reductions,
continuing over a longer period of time.!
✤ One goal was cheaper labor for the cities.!
✤ Source: Committee for Economic
Development, “An Adaptive Program for
Agriculture,” 1962.

4. 01
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).
✤ 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.

5. 01
“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.”
✤ “...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.

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,…
✤ “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
✤ “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.

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. Date
Town Population inWapello County (% of 1950)
Decline is mostly since 1980.

12. Date
Population Decrease: WapelloTowns
Note: continued reduction in recent years.

13. Date
Town Population inWapello County (% of 1980)

14. *County seat. ** Rural Towns, without county seat. ***Rural Remainder is county minus all towns.
Wapello Comparison (with Rural Remainder)
Rural towns and Rural Remainder had the steepest declines.

15. Date
Iowa’s New Congressional Districts

16. The 3rd District had a lot of rural decline, but Polk County (Des Moines) and Dallas County had big increases.!
This district had the biggest increase of the 4, well above the state average.
3rd District Since 1980: Up 39%
As a whole, the district increased in population since 1980, but not as much as the U.S.

17. A previous chart showed the rate of increase of U.S. population over 70 years, (since 1950: 217% or a 117% increase). !
That rate would have increased 3rd District population by 386,186, to 1,363,239, (148% or a 48% increase).
3rd District: 386,186 More @ U.S. Rate
The 3rd District’s increase is much less than 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
U.S. Population grew faster. Iowa has lost half of it’s members of Congress. 8 in 1950, 4 in 2020.

19. Date
Since 1980: 3rd 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. 1980s, a decade of decline.
Since 1950: 3rd District COUNTIES
Rural Counties: way down! Polk County, (Des Moines,) and Dallas County trending upward.

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

23. While the rate of increse has been slower than the U.S. the trendline is toward catching up.
Since 1980: 3rd DistrictTOWNS
3rd District population rose faster than the state average. But not the 105 rural towns!

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

25. As a percent of 1950, the trendline for the 3rd District is not very impressive. (The decline of farming started in 1953.)
Since 1950: 3rd DistrictTOWNS
The comparison is even more downward for rural towns since 1950. Flocking to Des Moines?

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

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

28. 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.

29. 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!

30. Date
AgBiz Lobby: Huge for a LongTime

31. 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.

32. 01
How many of Iowa’s hogs
have been owned by:!
✤ Chinese Smithfield!
✤ Brazilian JBS!
✤ Canadians!
✤ Murphy (North Carolina)?

33. 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.!
✤ 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.