About Manure Manager

Manure Manager

Overview

Manure Manager is a Canadian trade magazine devoted entirely to the handling of livestock manure — its storage, transport, application, treatment and use as a crop nutrient and energy resource. Published by Annex Business Media from Simcoe, Ontario, it appears in print six times a year and is supported by a news website at manuremanager.com, e-newsletters, webinars and the magazine's long-standing role as show manager of the North American Manure Expo. Annex describes it in its portfolio material as the only magazine published exclusively for the manure handling industry across North America; that is the publisher's own characterisation, presented here as such.

Few trade magazines anywhere cover so narrow a subject in such depth. Manure Manager's readers are the livestock producers, custom manure applicators and haulers, equipment manufacturers and dealers, storage designers, nutrient management planners, agricultural engineers and university and government researchers who manage one of farming's most valuable and most regulated by-products. Its coverage treats manure as what modern agriculture increasingly recognises it to be: not a waste problem but a fertiliser resource and a potential source of renewable energy. In 2026 the magazine's website was publishing features and news through the spring, and its team was documenting the North American Manure Expo held July 28–30, 2026 in Wayne, Nebraska.

History

Manure Manager was launched in 2003 in North Vancouver, British Columbia, by publisher Perry Rosehill. The bimonthly magazine was produced on a small scale — Rosehill told Masthead Online that issues averaged 48 pages with 20 to 22 advertising pages, on a controlled circulation of 15,700 nationally — but it found a loyal niche among producers and the companies that serve them, a community bound together, as Rosehill cheerfully acknowledged, by being the brunt of the same jokes about their line of work.

In January 2007, Annex Business Media acquired Manure Manager as the 26th title in its stable, in the same month it also bought Aggregates & Roadbuilding Magazine, the predecessor of today's Rock to Road. "We've taken the publication about as far as we could with the resources we had and thought maybe somebody else could take it to the next level," Rosehill said at the sale. Annex CEO Mike Fredericks joked that with the acquisition he had found "a way to get myself into more shit." Production moved to Annex's home base in Simcoe, Ontario, where the title joined an agricultural publishing group that already included Greenhouse Canada, Canadian Poultry and Top Crop Manager.

Under Annex the magazine settled into a six-issue annual rhythm, with themed editions anchoring the calendar — a September/October safety issue and a November/December liquid manure issue among them — and built out its digital operation at manuremanager.com. Its editor, Bree Rody, has written about accepting the job at Annex at age 31 as editor of both Manure Manager and the sister title Drainage Contractor despite not having been on a farm since the age of five, and growing into an industry she now covers with obvious affection; her "From the Editor" columns are a fixture of each issue. Annex itself has continued to evolve around the title, completing an employee-management buyout in 2024 under CEO Scott Jamieson.

Content and Coverage

Manure Manager's editorial program follows the full manure cycle. Storage coverage examines tanks, lagoons, covers and flare systems, agitation and the safety practices around storages — including the ever-present danger of manure gases such as hydrogen sulfide, a subject the magazine returns to in its annual safety issue. Application coverage compares tankers, drag hose systems, injectors and solid spreaders, reports on application uniformity and nutrient placement, and follows technology from nutrient-sensing tools to updated manure nutrient databases: an April 2026 feature examined how new data visualisations are being added to manure nutrient measurement tools, drawing on University of Minnesota and partner research.

Treatment and energy are growing beats. The magazine reports on anaerobic digestion — including a proposed US$45-million digester project in Marathon County, Wisconsin, and the economics of digesters for farms of different sizes — composting, nutrient separation and the capture of manure's fertiliser value. Environmental and regulatory coverage spans nutrient management planning, phosphorus runoff, setback and timing rules, greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, including Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Methane Reduction Challenge for the cattle sector, and the nutrient rules producers face in jurisdictions across Canada and the United States. Farm-level features profile operations adapting their systems, and the magazine carries industry news from both countries, from a B.C. farmer and researcher turning manure into odourless soil to contested manure management plan approvals in Iowa.

The North American Manure Expo is the magazine's live extension. The event, owned by the Professional Nutrient Applicators' Association of Wisconsin and managed by Annex Business Media as show manager, rotates among host states and provinces and combines farm tours, a trade show and side-by-side field demonstrations of agitation, solid and liquid application and compost equipment, with education sessions carrying continuing education credits. Recent editions were held in Ohio in 2025 and at the Wayne County Fairgrounds in Wayne, Nebraska, on July 28–30, 2026, where tours took in anaerobic digestion, composting and cattle operations across the region. The magazine covers the Expo intensively, including its annual slogan contest, and publishes the host committee's messages in its pages.

Audience and Reach

Manure Manager is a controlled-circulation magazine. At the time of its sale to Annex in 2007, its publisher reported a national controlled circulation of 15,700 across Canada; the magazine has since positioned itself across North America, and its website and the Manure Expo draw heavily on the United States livestock sector as well. Those circulation figures are historical and publisher-reported, presented as such; no current independently audited circulation is claimed here.

Annex's portfolio describes the audience the magazine is built to serve: custom manure applicators and haulers, manure equipment manufacturers, feed supplement manufacturers, manure storage manufacturers and designers, manure and nutrient management plan contractors and advisors, agricultural engineers and construction specialists, and university and government livestock, manure and nutrient management researchers, alongside the dairy, beef, swine and poultry producers who generate and land-apply manure. It is, in short, the whole professional ecosystem around a single material — a readership that buys high-value, infrequent equipment and services, which is precisely why a dedicated title can sustain itself. Michelle Bertholet has been listed as the title's group publisher in Annex's agricultural portfolio.

Digital Presence

The Manure Manager website, manuremanager.com, carries features, daily industry news, webinars, equipment coverage and event information, organised by topics including sustainability, environment, biogas, storage, application and business and policy. Through the spring of 2026 it was publishing several features and news items a month: April 2026 alone brought features on spreading diversity across manure types, injecting solid manure, solid manure sampling and growing custom application businesses, plus news on Burnbrae Farms' Margaret Hudson's recognition among 2026's Influential Women in Canadian Agriculture, a Cornell study concluding that moving manure is "a coordination problem, not a resource problem," and the Manure Expo slogan contest. The site also hosts the magazine's digital editions and subscription pages, its webinar archive and its coverage of the North American Manure Expo, including photo and video reporting from its own staff — editor Bree Rody's Expo photography is credited by university extension partners covering the 2025 and 2026 events. Readers can subscribe to the print magazine and e-newsletters through the site.

Ownership and Organisation

Manure Manager is published by Annex Business Media, Canada's largest B2B media company, from its headquarters in Simcoe, Ontario. Annex was founded in 1997, began as a collection of local newspapers and industry trade magazines, sold its newspapers in 2003 to concentrate on trade publishing, and today manages more than 60 media brands spanning agriculture, construction, manufacturing, transportation, food and other sectors, operating in an omni-channel model of print, digital, email, social media and events. Manure Manager sits in Annex's agricultural group alongside titles such as Top Crop Manager, Canadian Poultry, Greenhouse Canada, Fruit & Vegetable and Drainage Contractor — the last of these sharing Manure Manager's editor, Bree Rody. Annex completed an employee-management buyout in 2024 and is led by CEO Scott Jamieson; it manages the North American Manure Expo on behalf of the event's owner, the Professional Nutrient Applicators' Association of Wisconsin.

Contact and Availability

Manure Manager is published by Annex Business Media from Simcoe, Ontario. The magazine's website is www.manuremanager.com, where livestock producers, custom applicators and industry suppliers can subscribe to the print magazine and its e-newsletters, read current features and news, and find information about the North American Manure Expo, including tour, exhibitor and sponsorship details through the Expo contacts published on the site and at manureexpo.org. Editorial and advertising inquiries are handled through the contact information published on the magazine's website and in each print issue's masthead.