Agriculture Journalism, Print

Ann Reisner

Agriculture—a $250-billion-plus-a-year industry, with $69 billion in crop exports in 2006—is one of the oldest and largest of all American industries. Every export dollar creates another $1.48 so that agriculture generated another $102 billion in supporting business. The major source of information about this industry for those in it is, and has been over the last hundred years, the agricultural/farm magazine. Agricultural media became a viable—that is, fairly reliable, roughly continuous, and relatively current—industry some few decades after the Civil War, ironically during roughly the same period in which the number of non–farm workers first surpassed the number of farm workers. The number of publications grew from 157 to over 400 from 1880 to 1920, prompted by sweeping changes in the nation as a whole. The postal act of 1879, which allowed magazines to be mailed at two (later one) cents per pound, coupled with railways, better wagon roads, and ...

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