About Gippsland Farmer

Gippsland Farmer

Overview

The Gippsland Farmer is a free monthly agricultural newspaper serving the farming districts of Gippsland in eastern Victoria. In its own published description of itself, the paper says it is "a monthly agricultural newspaper reporting on rural news and distributed FREE and direct to an area covering from Cann River through to South Gippsland" — a sweep that takes in the East Gippsland grazing and vegetable country around Orbost and Bairnsdale, the dairying districts of Central Gippsland around Sale and Maffra, and the mixed farming country of South Gippsland. It is a specialist rural title rather than a general community newspaper: everything in it is written for people who make their living from the land.

The paper is published by Elliott Gippsland Newspapers Pty Ltd, the Morwell-based company whose other masthead is the Latrobe Valley Express, and it is registered with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) as a newspaper masthead of that business. Its stories are published online at gippslandfarmer.com.au, where dated items appear on a rolling basis between print editions. The Gippsland Farmer should not be confused with the nineteenth-century Gippsland Farmers' Journal of Traralgon, a separate and long-defunct title with a similar name.

History

No founding document for the Gippsland Farmer is published in the registers and directories consulted for this profile, and the paper does not publicly state an exact year of establishment. What it does say, in the standard description carried on its own website, is that "for more than 40 years Gippsland Farmer has reported on a range of issues and industries" in the region — a claim that places its origins in the early 1980s or before, and which this profile records as the paper's own account of its longevity rather than as an independently audited date.

The title's modern position is clearer. The Gippsland Farmer sits in the stable of Elliott Gippsland Newspapers Pty Ltd (ABN 46 004 634 333), a long-standing independent Gippsland publisher based at Morwell in the Latrobe Valley, where its sister paper the Latrobe Valley Express is printed and published at 21 George Street. When the company registered its news business with the ACMA under the News Media Bargaining Code framework, the Gippsland Farmer was listed alongside the Latrobe Valley Express as one of the business's two newspaper mastheads, with the registration dated 25 September 2025. The paper is also listed in the Gippsland group of Regional Media Connect, the Country Press Australia sales network through which advertisers can buy space across Victorian country newspapers.

Programming and Content

The Gippsland Farmer's coverage is organised entirely around Gippsland agriculture. Its own description lists the industries it has reported on across its life: dairy, beef, vegetables, sheep, goats, poultry, organic farming and viticulture. In practice its pages mix industry news, research and extension reporting, rural politics, market and seasonal coverage, and reported features from farm businesses across the region.

Recent editions show the range. The paper reported the 2026 Gippsland Red Meat Conference, held at the Sale Baptist Church, where almost 200 farmers, industry partners and suppliers heard from experts and industry leaders under the theme "Every decision counts"; its report recorded the Gippsland Agriculture Group's twenty-year path from its beginnings as Top Crop in Bairnsdale, through a period as the Gippsland branch of Southern Farming Systems, and the growth of its trial site from 10 hectares to 100 hectares in 2020, with the group's chair, Leecia Angus, opening the day. Its October 2026 online items included a new national collaborative research project on the resilience and productivity of sheep in low-rainfall farming systems, coverage of the targeted biosecurity measures being required as H5 bird flu spreads among wild birds along Victoria's coastline, and the Country Fire Authority's call for feedback on draft guidelines and model requirements for renewable energy facilities. In September 2026 it carried Australian Dairy Farmers' call for the federal government to reverse a visa processing change affecting skilled dairy workers, a feature by Erika Allen on poultry exhibitors returning to the show ring, and a regular column by Katrina Brandon.

Earlier reporting shows the same practical, farm-business focus. The paper covered a Morwell technology business, Alternate Energy Innovations, winning the best agricultural energy management project at the 2023 National Energy Efficiency Conference for its work with Wilandra Farms, a dairy farm at Clydebank near Sale milking about 350 cows, where a renewable energy action plan combined 200 kilowatts of solar, battery storage and small wind turbines against an irrigation load that accounted for about 71 per cent of the farm's energy use. It has explained federal biosecurity policy for its readers, including the strengthened funding package and the new regulatory fees and charges that took effect in July 2023. Alongside the industry coverage, it carries community and sporting material from across its territory, including lawn bowls reporting from Gippsland clubs.

Audience and Reach

The paper's audience is the Gippsland farming community itself — owner-operators, farm managers, workers and the agribusiness, agency and service firms that supply them. Because it is distributed free and direct across its territory, rather than sold, its reach is defined by that distribution footprint: from Cann River in the far east, through the Snowy River and Tambo Valley country, the Macalister Irrigation District and the Wellington Shire plains around Sale and Maffra, and west and south into the dairying and beef country of South Gippsland. No independently audited circulation figure for the title is published in the sources consulted, and the paper's own materials do not state one, so none is given here. Its inclusion in the Country Press Australia sales network's Gippsland group, alongside titles such as the Bairnsdale Advertiser and the Gippsland Times, places it within the advertising infrastructure used by regional and national rural advertisers.

Digital Presence

The Gippsland Farmer publishes online at gippslandfarmer.com.au. The site carries the paper's stories in a standard news layout with dated items — items dated October 2026 were live on the site when this profile was prepared — and each story carries the paper's standard description of itself as a free monthly distributed from Cann River to South Gippsland. The website functions as the paper's continuous presence between monthly print editions, carrying the same mix of livestock, dairy, cropping and rural-affairs reporting as the printed paper.

Ownership and Organisation

The Gippsland Farmer is owned and published by Elliott Gippsland Newspapers Pty Ltd, an independent Gippsland newspaper company based in Morwell in the Latrobe Valley. The company's registered news business with the ACMA is the Latrobe Valley Express Partnership, and its two registered newspaper mastheads are the Latrobe Valley Express — the long-established newspaper of the Latrobe Valley — and the Gippsland Farmer. The ACMA register names Barbara Seymour as the contact for the business, on 03 5135 4431, with the contact email bseymour@lvexpress.com.au. The Farmer is produced within that operation rather than as a standalone company: it is the group's specialist agricultural title, complementing the Express's general news coverage of the Latrobe Valley with farming coverage spanning the whole of Gippsland.

Contact and Availability

The Gippsland Farmer is a free monthly newspaper, distributed direct to its readership across Gippsland from Cann River through to South Gippsland, and its stories can be read online at gippslandfarmer.com.au. The publisher, Elliott Gippsland Newspapers Pty Ltd, is based in Morwell with the Latrobe Valley Express; the contact listed for the business on the ACMA Register of Eligible News Businesses is Barbara Seymour, telephone 03 5135 4431, email bseymour@lvexpress.com.au.