Garry Klicker
Key Player

Board member, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement; hog farmerA long-time member of the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (ICCI) Board of Directors, Garry Klicker does not like farms bigger than his. In the June 23, 2002 issue of the Burlington Hawk Eye, Klicker slammed farmers who work with corporations, saying that “they are like serfs.” As for farmers who raise lots of hogs and thus keep them in confinements so to monitor their health and feeding: “My feeling is if a farmer is raising hogs in a confinement, they probably need to be visited by [Iowa’s Department of Human Services] because they probably have kids in the closet.”

What do Garry Klicker and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have in common? They both have a financial stake in destroying Iowa’s hog industry. Klicker doesn’t want the competition and Kennedy wants a lawyer’s cut of anti-hog lawsuits. Kennedy told National Public Radio on February 18, 2001 that his Waterkeeper Alliance has “attorneys now who have money and they know what they’re doing. They are the best in the country and we are going to put an end to this [hog] industry.” In the July 25, 2002 Van Buren County Register, Klicker affirmed his support of Kennedy’s anti-hog statements: “I’m very proud of our association with other groups who have common goals. Waterkeepers [sic] is one [group] I not only am happy to support, but have joined as well. Robert Kennedy’s strong statements are exactly on target.”