With the Decline of farming in Iowa, (as seen in my other slides shows,) Iowa has also had rural population decline. While the U.S. has doubled in population since 1950, Iowa has increased much less, dropping from 8 Congressional Districts to 4, because of significant decline all across Iowa's rural areas. Behind it all is the reduction (1953-1995) and elimination of minimum farm Price Floor programs, leading to much lower farm income. This led to a second major factor, the severe loss of farms with value-added livestock. This in turn led to a loss of diversity, of the sustainable "livestock crops," pastures, hay and nurse crops like oats. This all was devastating for small town "mainstreet" businesses.

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 4th District folder.
4th 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. Farming areas outside of towns, (not shown,) declined even more. See charts below.!
Cylinder, in Palo Alto County, is Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig’s home town.
RuralTowns & Counties Declined
Iowa population rose much more slowly than US population, (declining in the 1980s).

12. Date
Population Decrease: Palo AltoTowns
Note: increase during 1970s, followed by (bigger) decrease during 1980s. Bad in 2000s.

13. Date
Population Decrease: Palo AltoTowns

14. Date
Town Population in Palo Alto County (% of 1980)

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

16. Date
Iowa’s New Congressional Districts

17. The 4th District declined the most of the 4 districts, (the only one to decline in total population since 1980, & since 1950).
4th District Since 1980: Down 5%
The whole district declined in population since 1980 and even since 1950!

18. 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 4th District population by 1,020,598, to 1,818,243, (228% or a 128% increase).
4th District: 1,020,598 More @ U.S. Rate
The 4th District’s decline contrasts with the U.S. Rate of Increase.

19. Iowa’s electoral college votes have 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.

20. Date
Since 1980: 4th District COUNTIES
More Rural = Less Increase, More Decline.

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

22. 1980s: a decade of decline.
Since 1950: 4th District COUNTIES
Rural Counties: way down! Border counties, (near the biggest cities,) also down!

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

24. Date
Since 1980: 4th DistrictTOWNS

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

26. Date
Since 1950: 4th DistrictTOWNS

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

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

29. 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, farms have usually lost money on corn exported & for domestic use. Not good for population.

30. 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!

31. Date
AgBiz Lobby: Huge for a LongTime

32. 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.

33. 01
How many of Iowa’s hogs
have been owned by:!
✤ Chinese Smithfield!
✤ Brazilian JBS!
✤ Canadians!
✤ Murphy (North Carolina)?

34. 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.
✤ 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.