About Ontario Farmer

Ontario Farmer

Overview

Ontario Farmer is a weekly farm newspaper published in London, Ontario, serving the province's crop and livestock producers, agribusinesses and rural communities. First published in 1968, it is one of the longest-running agricultural publications in Canada, and trade coverage of the Canadian newspaper industry has billed it as the province's only weekly farm publication. The newspaper is owned by Postmedia Network, which acquired it in 2015 as part of its purchase of Sun Media's English-language newspapers, and it sits within Postmedia's stable alongside a family of specialist farm magazines covering Ontario's dairy, hog and beef sectors.

The paper combines farm news, production advice, commodity-market reporting and rural community coverage in a weekly print edition, supported by the ontariofarmer.com website and a digital replica edition carried on PressReader. It is verifiably publishing on schedule in 2026: PressReader carries complete weekly editions dated 29 September 2026 and 13 October 2026, with full tables of contents spanning production, markets, farm business and community news.

History

Ontario Farmer was first published in 1968 in London, Ontario, by Bowes Publishers, a London-based community-newspaper chain whose farm-publications unit operated from the city for decades. The paper grew into the anchor of a small agricultural publishing group: companion titles followed for the province's main livestock sectors, including Ontario Dairy Farmer (first published in 1987), Ontario Hog Farmer (1988) and Ontario Beef Farmer (1993), along with Western Dairy Farmer and a Corn/Soy/Wheat Handbook, plus farm-show publications and equipment shoppers. Like most Canadian farm papers, it has been distributed chiefly by paid subscription through the mail to farm households and businesses across the province — the paid-circulation model reflected in its audit-bureau listings over the years.

In 1988 Sun Media took control of the Bowes Publishers chain, bringing Ontario Farmer into what became Canada's largest newspaper group, then owned by Quebecor. The paper remained a Sun Media title for more than twenty-five years. In October 2014 Sun Media agreed to sell its 175 English-language daily and weekly newspapers and specialty titles to Postmedia for about $316 million; the federal Competition Bureau cleared the deal with a no-action letter in March 2015, and Ontario Farmer passed to Postmedia with the rest of the chain. At the time of the sale, industry coverage reported the paper's circulation at roughly 28,000 copies in 2014 and about 25,300 in 2015.

The competitive landscape shifted in 2018, when Glacier FarmMedia launched Farmtario, a new biweekly Ontario farm publication edited from London — making Ontario Farmer, for the first time in decades, one of two farm papers chasing the province's producers. Ontario Farmer has nonetheless retained significant public support as a farm periodical: federal open-data records show Postmedia received a Canada Periodical Fund grant of $812,365 for Ontario Farmer for the 2023–24 fiscal year, among the largest grants to any single community publication that year.

Content and Coverage

The weekly paper is organised around the working concerns of Ontario farm businesses. Production coverage follows the crop and livestock seasons — planting and harvest progress, soil and nutrient management, pest and disease pressures, and livestock production — while its market pages track grain and livestock prices, futures markets and United States Department of Agriculture reports. Farm business and policy reporting covers farm finance, taxation, trade and tariffs, agricultural programmes, and the doings of farm organisations such as the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

The editions carried on PressReader in the autumn of 2026 show the format in detail. The 13 October 2026 issue ranges from tariff and trade analysis and farm financial pressure to harvest reporting, farm-safety coverage, equipment news (including AGCO's next-generation Valtra T tractor and a spraying drone), soil and agronomy features, and community material: county fairs such as the Norfolk Fair, 4-H Ontario volunteer awards, and Nuffield Canada scholarship announcements. The 29 September 2026 edition is similar in shape: a corn, soy and wheat handbook feature, a report on pork's economic impact, coverage of a federal survey on migrant farm-worker programmes, automation in year-round leafy-greens production, Farm Credit Canada advice on farm transition, and reporting from the Owen Sound and Norfolk fairs. Long-serving columnists are part of the mix; Ottawa-based agriculture writer Tom Van Dusen, whose byline has appeared in the paper for many years, is listed as an Ontario Farmer contributor in current journalist directories. The companion magazines — Ontario Dairy Farmer, Ontario Hog Farmer and Ontario Beef Farmer — provide deeper sector-specific coverage under the same London roof.

Audience and Reach

Ontario Farmer's audience is the province's farm sector: producers in livestock and crop enterprises, agribusiness suppliers and the organisations that serve them, in the words of its industry directory listing. Its circulation has been measured at several points, and the figures are best read as dated snapshots rather than current data: about 29,453 copies (CCAB) in a mid-2010s directory listing, about 28,000 in 2014, about 25,300 in 2015, and 17,500 paid copies (AAM) in the most recent directory listing found. The Canada Periodical Fund grant recorded for 2023–24 confirms the paper continued to qualify as a significant paid-circulation farm newspaper into the mid-2020s. No more recent audited figure could be verified, and none is claimed here.

Digital Presence

The paper's website, ontariofarmer.com, carries its news, production and market coverage online, and the full print edition is distributed digitally through PressReader, where the weekly issues for 29 September 2026 and 13 October 2026 were verified for this profile, complete with article listings. The digital replica extends the paper's reach beyond its Ontario print distribution to subscribers anywhere. Ontario Farmer's specialist sister magazines share the same web address, and the group has long maintained an online presence for its farm-show and shopper publications as well. The London base is itself significant: the city sits in the middle of southwestern Ontario, the province's most intensively farmed region, and the paper has been produced there, close to its readership, for its entire existence.

Ownership and Organisation

Ontario Farmer is published in London, Ontario, by Postmedia Network, Canada's largest newspaper company, which lists the Ontario Farmer magazines among its magazine properties. The paper was historically operated as the flagship of Ontario Farmer Publications, the farm unit built up under Bowes Publishers and then Sun Media. Older industry directories record the Bowes-era operation at a London postal address with Mervyn J. Hawkins as publisher of the farm unit and Paul Mahon as associate publisher and editor-in-chief, roles Mahon continued under Sun Media and Postmedia; a current directory still lists him as the publication's editor, working from the London office. Those listings are directory data and are presented as such. Postmedia's majority owner is Chatham Asset Management, a fact of the parent company's structure rather than of the paper itself.

Contact and Availability

Ontario Farmer is published weekly from London, Ontario. A current industry directory lists the publication at 3939 Cheese Factory Road, London, Ontario N6N 1G2, with the telephone number 226-962-7919; readers can also reach the paper through ontariofarmer.com, where subscription and advertising information is published, and the digital edition is available worldwide through PressReader. Subscriptions to the weekly print edition remain the paper's principal route to readers across rural Ontario. The public business email field for this listing is left empty.