Vern Tigges
Key Player

Former vice-chair, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement; boutique swine and poultry farmer and direct marketerA long-time member of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement’s (ICCI) Board of Directors, Vern Tigges served as the Board’s vice-chair in 2002. Tigges is very explicit about his own financial interests aligning with the political goals of ICCI. He told the Carroll Today newspaper in October 2004:


I have customers that complain that pork doesn’t taste the way it used to. Of course not. It doesn’t. It’s like any other commercial food enterprise that comes along, whether it be bread or anything else, baked goods, canned goods; it doesn’t taste as good as home grown. It’s always got that cardboard taste to it.

Vern Tigges, of course, raises and markets his own pork directly to consumers and thus directly competes with more efficient farms. He does not raise enough hogs to be subject to the regulations ICCI advocates.