About Better Farming

Better Farming

Overview

Better Farming is a Canadian farm business magazine serving commercial farmers, published in two regional editions: Better Farming Ontario, for the farmers of Canada's most populous agricultural province, and Better Farming Prairies, for producers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. It is published by Ag Media Inc., a division of the Farms.com group, and works from the Farms.com office at 90 Woodlawn Road West in Guelph, Ontario. The magazine concentrates on the business side of farming — crop and livestock production, farm management, markets, machinery and the public policy questions that bear on commercial agriculture — rather than on rural lifestyle content.

The magazine describes itself, in its own billing, as "the professional farmer's trusted source for insight and analysis on commercial agriculture and the key issues affecting rural life," and says the Ontario edition is distributed to 39,000 commercial farms, with the western version reaching 45,000 farms across the three Prairie provinces. Those distribution figures are the publisher's own and are presented here as such. Trade directory listings have put the Ontario edition's circulation at 38,700, published 11 times a year, with the Prairies edition appearing nine times a year. Better Farming is also delivered as a membership benefit to members of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), which ties its readership directly to the province's general farm organisation.

History

Better Farming was launched in November 1999, rising directly from the collapse of one of Ontario's oldest farm publications. Its predecessor, Farm & Country, had been published for 63 years by the Agricultural Publishing Company (APC), in which the Ontario Federation of Agriculture held a 90 per cent stake. By the late 1990s the title was losing money; the OFA declined to finance a proposed conversion to paid circulation, APC was liquidated in the summer of 1999, its staff were laid off, and the company declared bankruptcy that September.

Three former APC employees — among them Paul Nolan, who had handled Farm & Country's national advertising accounts — relaunched the magazine under the new name Better Farming through their own Milton, Ontario-based company, AgMedia Cooperative, later Ag Media Inc. The OFA was not a shareholder in the new venture, but the magazine retained a close working relationship with the federation: Ag Media went on to produce custom publications for the OFA, including OFA Today and OFA In Sight, as well as the official show guide for the International Plowing Match. In 2000 the company launched a sister title, Better Pork, aimed at Ontario's hog producers.

The magazine's ownership changed on 20 April 2016, when Farms.com — the online agriculture company whose portal network includes Farms.com, AgCareers.com and Agriville.com — announced it had acquired a majority interest in Ag Media Inc. Ag Media moved its operations into Farms.com's Guelph office, with Nolan continuing as publisher and editorial director. Farms.com president Graham Dyer said at the time that the deal would let the company offer advertisers integrated print, online, video and events packages in Ontario. Better Farming has remained in the Farms.com portfolio since, alongside stablemates that include Better Pork, Small Farm Canada and the annual Ag & Country Ontario agri-business directory.

Content and Coverage

Better Farming's editorial mix is built around the decisions commercial producers make through a growing season and a business year. Production coverage spans field crops and livestock: agronomy and pest management, soil and nutrient questions, animal health and housing, and new machinery and technology. A recurring feature of its crop coverage is the Great Ontario Yield Tour, whose 2026 edition forecast a record average provincial corn yield of 206 bushels per acre. Business coverage addresses farm finance, succession, labour, marketing and risk management, while policy reporting follows the files that most affect farm incomes — in 2025 and 2026 that has meant sustained coverage of Canada–United States tariff uncertainty and of federal and provincial programs to diversify export markets for Ontario food products.

The magazine also reports on the institutions of Ontario agriculture: the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, commodity organisations, the International Plowing Match and Rural Expo — whose 2026 edition in Bruce County drew 71,330 visitors, according to the magazine's reporting — and events such as the RAM Rodeo Tour finals. News is published on the website daily between print issues, so the title functions as both a monthly print magazine and a continuously updated online news service for its readership. Coverage is practical and Ontario-first in the eastern edition, with the Prairies edition adapting the formula to western Canadian conditions and commodities.

Audience and Reach

The readership is the commercial farm sector: owner-operators and managers of crop, dairy, beef, hog, poultry and specialty farms, together with the agri-business suppliers, lenders, advisors and government staff who serve them. Because the Ontario edition is delivered as a benefit of OFA membership, its circulation reaches beyond a conventional subscriber list into the organised farm community of the province, and the publisher's directory listings describe the Ontario edition as the largest-circulation editorial publication serving Ontario's commercial farmers — a characterisation the magazine itself uses in its own promotional material.

No current independently audited circulation figure is asserted here. The most concrete numbers in the public record are the publisher's own: distribution to 39,000 Ontario commercial farms and 45,000 Prairie farms, as stated on the magazine's website, and the 38,700 Ontario circulation carried in trade directories. What can be said on the evidence is that the magazine has published continuously since 1999, survived the failure of its predecessor and a change of ownership, and continues to file daily news in 2026 — its website carried Ontario agriculture news dated 16 October 2026, including provincial funding announcements and event coverage, at the time of this profile.

Digital Presence

The magazine's home at betterfarming.com combines the print title's archive with a daily news feed organised by topic, including crops, livestock, business and policy. Full issues of the Ontario edition are archived on the site in digital form going back more than a decade, and features from the current edition are published online alongside web-only news. The site is integrated with the wider Farms.com network, cross-promoting the portal's markets, classifieds, equipment listings and rural real estate services, and readers can follow the magazine's coverage through Farms.com's newsletters and social channels. The October 2026 news flow on the site — provincial investment announcements, yield tour results and rural event coverage filed within days of publication deadlines — confirms the title is actively produced in both print and digital form.

Ownership and Organisation

Better Farming is published by Ag Media Inc., in which Farms.com acquired a majority interest in April 2016. The publisher and editorial director is Paul Nolan, one of the magazine's founders in 1999, whose tenure as publisher extends back more than two decades, first at Ag Media and then within the Farms.com group. Production, advertising and subscription functions are handled from the Farms.com office in Guelph, which the company shares with its other Canadian print titles; the 2026 Ag & Country directory masthead, for example, lists the same Guelph address and phone number, with Nolan as publisher and a shared advertising and design team across the Farms.com publications. One note on geography: this directory's inventory record lists the magazine under Toronto, reflecting its founding era in the orbit of Toronto-based farm publishing — its predecessor Farm & Country was a Toronto publication — but the magazine's founding company was based in Milton and its editorial home since 2016 has been Guelph, as stated openly here.

Contact and Availability

Better Farming is published from 90 Woodlawn Road West, Guelph, Ontario N1H 1B2, and the publisher's toll-free number is 1-888-248-4893. Subscriptions and reader services are handled through Farms.com, and the magazine's website at betterfarming.com carries current news, the digital edition archive and subscription information for both the Ontario and Prairies editions. The Ontario edition appears 11 times a year and the Prairies edition nine times a year, with daily news online between issues.