Iowa and Bangladesh share one thing in common – land area. Each has about 57,000 square miles in land mass. Bangladesh is located in South Asia on the Bay of Bengal. Most of the land is less than 39 feet above sea level. Its main climatic problems are floods, cyclones, and tornados. The temperature never drops below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It is one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
Bangladesh has 171 million people. Iowa has 3.2 million. In Greene County there are 8,700 people, or about 15 persons per square mile. Across the state (using 100 counties for easy figuring), we average about 55 bodies per square mile.
So if the entire population of Bangladesh would move to Iowa, we would have 1.7 million bodies in every county, or about 2,950 per square mile. Can you imagine the mass of humanity, the increased chances of catching a disease, or the amount of human waste that would need to be disposed of?
The people of that Bengal Bay country are mostly Muslim (previously known as Moslems). They follow the teachings of the Islam religion based on the Quran (their Bible). Eating pork is forbidden. They believe pigs are unclean and want nothing to do with swine.
Iowa has about 24.5 million hogs as of March 1, 2025, or about 7.5 pigs per every Iowan. That means every square mile in Iowa has an average of 430 pigs and that equates to 247,680 in every county.
So, fellow readers have no fear of an invasion of people that don’t follow our legal and cultural norms. The Iowa Pork Producers Association should promote this fact as a “defensive deterrent” in advertising their product. Not only are swine good for consuming our large amounts of corn and beans, they also give jobs to those raising the animal and processing it into a high quality protein source. Pigs keep unwanted immigrants from settling in our great state.
Please pass me the pork chops.
Denny Lautner, Jefferson
Publisher’s note – This editorial was initially posted with an incorrect header, “Iowa. Somalia, and swine.”, The error was corrected as soon as a reader brought it to my attention, one of the advantages of online publishing over print publishing. I apologize for the error. ~vjr
