About Us

The Illinois AgriNews and Indiana AgriNews staff is in the field each week, covering topics that affect local farm families and their businesses. We give readers information they can’t get elsewhere to help them make better farming decisions.

AgriNews strives to be:

1. Relevant

2. Smart

3. Targeted

4. Vital

With field editors working throughout Illinois and Indiana, AgriNews readers receive news and advertising tailored to their farm areas every week.

Some of the topics the staff reports on include crop and livestock management, agribusiness and new products, market information and national and state political issues.

AgriNews celebrated its 40th year in 2017. It joined the Shaw Media family in 2019.

Since its inception, AgriNews’ goal has remained the same. It still is focused on reporting events — both big and small — that impact the lives of farm families.

The newspaper, which was first published as Ag-News, initially covered a three-county area. A year later, it was expanded to include three editions in 24 Illinois counties.

By the end of 1980, the newspaper was circulating in every county in Illinois. The newspaper was then converted from publishing two to three times a month into a weekly publication, and the three different editions were combined into one.

AgriNews management started planning a newspaper for Indiana in 1982. It was patterned after the Illinois publication, but the Hoosier newspaper is independent.

Distance has never been an obstacle to AgriNews when it comes to gathering the news.

Members of the editorial department have traversed the nation, covering events such as the National FFA Convention, the North American International Livestock Exposition, the National Farm Machinery Show and the Commodity Classic, the annual meeting of the National Corn Growers Association, the American Soybean Association and others.

Reporters also have made trips to Washington to be on hand for changes in farm legislation, but AgriNews’ coverage of important stories has extended well beyond the borders of the continental United States. For example, reporters have traveled to Argentina, Brazil, China, Costa Rica, England, France, Germany, Honduras, Hungary, Japan, Mexico and the former Soviet Union.

For rates on print and internet advertising, contact Barb Sweger at 800-426-9438, ext. 114, or advertising@agrinews-pubs.com.

To suggest a story idea, contact Executive Editor James Henry at 800-426-9438, ext. 190, or editorial@agrinews-pubs.com.