Items to be paraphrased

Factory Farming
“If it  wasn’t for the hogs,  there’d be nothing  here. This would be a ghost town.” An elderly man first said these words to me in a coffee shop in the town that I call Dixon, the central hub of some fifteen thousand residents in a recently formed one hundred-mile-radius region that cuts across the  Great Plains and Midwest of the United States.

1 The author Alex Blanchette asks
2 an elderly man
(in a coffee shop; the central hub)
3 “If it  wasn’t for the hogs, ...  ” -> pork factory
4 the man is the first person asked
5 "This would be a ghost town." -> pork production is the reason for the existence of the town
6 "in the town that I call Dixon" Blanchette does not disclose the real name.
7 fifteen thousand inhabitants
8 "recently formed one-hundred-mile-radius region"
9 that cuts across the Great Plains and Midwest of the United States

I have identified 9 elements to be paraphrased.
No. 3: Where Blanchette asked and that this café is an important place in the town is irrelevant for my purposes.

OK, thanks. Please take me back to the exercise.