About Österreichische BauernZeitung

Österreichische BauernZeitung

Österreichische BauernZeitung is a German-language weekly agricultural newspaper published in Vienna, in the state of Vienna, Austria, for the Österreichischer Bauernbund, the Austrian Farmers' Association. Its official website is bauernzeitung.at. It bills itself as the largest weekly newspaper for rural areas, a claim rendered in German as the grösste Wochenzeitung für den ländlichen Raum, and it carries the slogan Die Zeitung für unseren Hof, the newspaper for our farm. The paper was created in March 2001 by merging four established farmers' newspapers into a single national title, and it has kept the regional structure of that merger ever since, combining a shared national section with state editions that preserve the names and identities of its predecessors, most visibly NEUES LAND in Styria and the Tiroler Bauernzeitung tradition in Tyrol. Published by Agrar Media Verlagsgesellschaft in Vienna, it serves farmers, farm families and the wider rural population with reporting on agricultural policy, markets, farm practice, technology and life in the countryside.

Formation in March 2001 and the Four Predecessor Papers

The Österreichische BauernZeitung has been on the media market since March 2001 as a merger of four agricultural newspapers: the NÖ Bauernbündler from Lower Austria, the OÖ Landwirtschaftszeitung from Upper Austria, the Tiroler Bauernzeitung from Tyrol, and NEUES LAND from Styria. That origin is recorded in a parliamentary inquiry on press subsidies for the paper, filed in the Austrian Parliament on 15 February 2010, which describes the title in exactly those terms as a Zusammenschluss, a joining together, of the four papers. The merger was therefore not the launch of an entirely new publication so much as a consolidation, bringing together papers that each already served a Bauernbund readership in its own federal state under one national masthead.

The depth of that inheritance is clearest in Tyrol. A bibliographic record for the Tyrol edition lists the Österreichische BauernZeitung – Tirol with the subtitle Österreichs grösste ländliche Wochenzeitung, Austria's largest rural weekly newspaper, and names its predecessor as the Tiroler Bauernzeitung, which ran from 1901 to 1938 and again from 1945 to 2001. In other words, when the national paper appeared in 2001, it absorbed a Tyrolean farmers' paper whose history, interrupted by the war years, stretched back a full century. The Styrian predecessor carried comparable weight in its own state: the 2010 parliamentary inquiry describes NEUES LAND as the weekly organ of the Steirischer Bauernbund, the Styrian Farmers' Association, and NEUES LAND was still marking its 85th year of publication in its issue of 30 October 2025, published in cooperation with the Österreichische BauernZeitung.

The Bauernbund as Publisher

The publisher, or Herausgeber, of the Österreichische BauernZeitung is the Österreichischer Bauernbund. The Bauernbund is one of the most important constituent organisations of the Austrian People's Party, the ÖVP, and it is the umbrella organisation of the nine state farmers' associations, the Landesbauernbünde, covering Burgenland, Carinthia, Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Vienna, each of which retains its own legal and financial independence. Members of the state associations are automatically members of the federal Bauernbund as well. The organisation was first founded in November 1919 as the Österreichischer Reichsbauernbund and existed in that form until 1938, and it was re-formed in 1945, after the Second World War, as a constituent organisation of the ÖVP composed of the nine state organisations. Membership figures cited for the Bauernbund run to more than 300,000, giving its newspaper a defined, organised readership base unusual among Austrian weeklies.

That ownership shapes the paper's character. An overview of Austrian agricultural media prepared for agricultural journalists describes the Österreichische BauernZeitung as the organ of the Bauernbund with predominantly political content, appearing weekly, and classifies papers of its type among the membership newspapers of the Bauernbund and the chambers of agriculture. The Bauernbund's own stated aim is to secure family farming across the whole country and to preserve rural areas as places to live, work and do business, and its public work includes publishing the Österreichische BauernZeitung. The paper should therefore be read as both a trade newspaper and an association newspaper: it reports the concerns of its publisher to its members while also functioning as a general news source for the farming population.

Publisher, Imprint and Editorial Leadership in Vienna

The media owner, publisher and editorial office named in the paper's imprint is Agrar Media Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, based at Sturzgasse 1a in the 14th district of Vienna, 1140 Wien. The same address is given in the paper's 2026 media data, which names the company as Medieninhaber of BauernZeitung.at. Management of the company is shared by DI Anni Pichler and Franz König. The editor-in-chief recorded in the imprint of the paper's October 2025 issues is Clemens Wieltsch. The Vienna editorial team named alongside him in that imprint includes Dr. Michael Stockinger, Johannes Stift, Katharina Berger and Martin Machtlinger, with Hannah Pixner credited for the BauernZeitung in Tyrol and Thomas Mursch-Edlmayr for the BauernZeitung in Upper Austria, a staffing pattern that mirrors the paper's federal structure. Advertising is led by Christof Hillbrand in Vienna.

Printing is handled outside the publishing house. The imprint names Mediaprint Zeitungsdruckerei Ges.m.b.H & Co KG, at Richard-Strauss-Strasse 16 in the 23rd district of Vienna, 1230 Wien, as the printer. Mediaprint is the large Vienna newspaper printing operation associated with Austria's biggest tabloid titles, and its role underlines that, for all its association character, the BauernZeitung is produced as a full-scale commercial weekly newspaper, printed by web offset on standard newsprint and distributed nationally by subscription.

A National Paper Built from Regional Editions

The defining structural feature of the Österreichische BauernZeitung is the division of each issue into a Bundesteil, a shared national section, and Landesteile, state sections. The 2026 media data organise both advertising and circulation around that split, with separate state parts for Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Tyrol, Styria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Burgenland and Vorarlberg, alongside the national section. In Styria the state part retains the historic NEUES LAND name and its own media company, NEUES LAND Medien GesmbH in Graz, for regional advertising, while readers there receive NEUES LAND in cooperation with the Österreichische BauernZeitung. In Tyrol and Vorarlberg, advertising and regional business are handled from Innsbruck, reflecting the old Tiroler Bauernzeitung operation, whose media owner is listed as Bauernzeitung Ges.m.b.H. at Brixner Strasse 1 in Innsbruck.

This structure is what allows a single title to function simultaneously as a national agricultural newspaper and as a set of local papers. A farmer in Lower Austria, the paper's largest market, receives the same national reporting on federal and European agricultural policy as a farmer in Tyrol, but the state pages carry the chamber, association, market and community news of the home state. It is also why the titles of the predecessor papers never entirely disappeared in 2001: the merger pooled national reporting, production and advertising sales, while the loyalty readers felt belonged, and still belongs, largely to their state edition.

Circulation and the Monthly Full Editions

According to its media data valid from 1 January 2026, the Österreichische BauernZeitung has a nationwide weekly circulation of 90,300 copies, rising to a nationwide monthly circulation of 118,200 copies in the issues that appear as enlarged full editions. The weekly figure is broken down by region as 40,400 copies for Lower Austria, Vienna and Burgenland combined, 18,000 copies for Styria under the NEUES LAND title, 16,100 copies for Tyrol and Vorarlberg, 14,700 copies for Upper Austria, and 1,100 copies listed as other distribution. The additional monthly circulation is accounted for by state full editions of 13,600 copies in Carinthia, 7,100 copies in Salzburg, 6,800 copies in Burgenland and 1,500 copies in Vorarlberg, states that are reached monthly at full strength rather than in the regular weekly state parts.

Those numbers sustain the paper's central billing. The Österreichischer Agrarverlag, the long-established Vienna agricultural publisher founded in 1928, has described the Österreichische Bauernzeitung in its own catalogue of agricultural titles as the highest-circulation weekly newspaper in rural areas, and the paper itself uses the formulation largest weekly newspaper for the rural area on its media data cover. In a country where the farming population is a small minority of the total population, a paid and association-distributed weekly circulation above 90,000 copies represents a very high penetration of its target group, and it explains the paper's weight with agricultural advertisers, machinery and input suppliers, and policymakers seeking to reach farm households.

What the Paper Covers: Politics, Markets and Farm Practice

Editorially, the paper organises its reporting around politics, the economy, markets, technology, production and rural life. Its own description of the relaunched website in September 2025 lists news and reports from Politik, Wirtschaft, Markt, Technik und Produktion through to Leben am Land, life in the countryside, and the print issues follow the same architecture, with numbered weekly editions running through the year. Issue 44 of 30 October 2025, for example, combined coverage of the European Commission's strategy to support young farmers, a review of the alpine pasture season, reporting on the spread of avian influenza in Europe, a farm portrait of sheep's-milk producers in Salzburg, an interview on social insurance with a deputy chairman of the SVS, the social insurance institution for the self-employed, and a regular legal advice feature under the heading Mein gutes Recht, covering questions such as when a landlord's own need can justify ending a tenancy.

Policy and market coverage dominate the front of the paper. Issue 38 of 18 September 2025 led on the debate over food prices, reporting the Bauernbund's warning that a debate fixated on cheap food is poison for domestic production, the pressure on farm incomes, and the gap between consumers' declared support for farmers and their actual buying behaviour, alongside the European Parliament's position on the agricultural budget, the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation and the effects of international trade agreements, as well as mixed farm income developments for 2024. Market reporting is treated as a core service for readers who, in editor-in-chief Clemens Wieltsch's words at the digital relaunch, are called upon as entrepreneurs more than ever, and the paper's existing market reports were expanded for the website with interactive graphics produced in cooperation with the Bundesanstalt für Agrarwirtschaft und Bergbauernfragen, the Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics and Rural and Mountain Research.

Print Format and Production

The print paper appears in a compact format of 225 by 300 millimetres, smaller than a traditional broadsheet, with a type area of 200 by 252 millimetres in the 2026 specifications, set in four columns of 47 millimetres each. It is printed by web offset, described in the media data as Rollenoffset, on 42.5-gram newspaper stock. The production rhythm is that of a weekly planned well in advance: for advertisers, the copy deadline falls on the Tuesday of the week before publication and the deadline for print-ready material on the Wednesday of the week before publication, with themed national-section issues scheduled across the 2026 calendar and certain issues marked as Vollauflagen, full editions with increased print runs.

Issues are dated to Thursdays in the published record for 2025, including numbers 36 of 4 September, 38 of 18 September, 43 of 23 October and 44 of 30 October 2025, and the paper's pagination runs to more than thirty pages in a typical issue, with the rural-life section, Leben am Land, placed towards the back. The Tyrol bibliographic record likewise lists the paper as appearing weekly on Thursdays. Within the Austrian agricultural press the BauernZeitung is one of only a small group of agricultural newspapers that appear weekly at all, alongside chamber and association papers such as the Salzburger Bauer, which gives its Thursday arrival a fixed place in the working week of its readers.

Subscription, Press Subsidy and the Public Record

The paper is sold primarily by annual subscription. The imprint in October 2025 gives the price as 59 euros for an annual subscription within Austria and 121 euros for an annual subscription abroad, with subscription orders handled through the paper's website and a subscription office reached via Linz, reflecting the Upper Austrian part of the merged operation. The association link means many readers encounter the paper through their Bauernbund membership environment, but it is formally a paid title with its own subscription administration.

As a Bauernbund title, the paper has also figured in Austria's long-running debate about state press subsidies, the Presseförderung. The parliamentary inquiry of February 2010, submitted by Member of Parliament Pirklhuber and colleagues to the Federal Chancellor, put on record that in 2004 the Österreichische Bauernzeitung received 81,081.64 euros in press subsidy, the Tiroler Bauernzeitung 5,820 euros and NEUES LAND 79,522.38 euros, a combined 166,424.02 euros for titles published by the Österreichischer Bauernbund. The inquiry is part of the paper's documentary history because it shows both the transparency requirements that attach to subsidised Austrian newspapers and the extent to which, even a decade after the 2001 merger, the predecessor titles continued to exist as distinct subsidised publications alongside the national masthead.

The Digital Relaunch, Website and App

Alongside print, the paper now presents itself, in its 2026 media data, as a 360-degree offering across four channels: print, its website and app, social media, and a newsletter. The current digital presence was launched at the beginning of September 2025, when the BauernZeitung gave itself what it called a new digital face. Announcing the relaunch in issue 36 of 4 September 2025, managing director Anni Pichler said the site would inform readers quickly and currently, but with the customary depth, about everything that moves the farming population, in a design described as younger, more modern and more up to date. The relaunched bauernzeitung.at offers industry news, reports from farms, current market developments, classified advertisements and events from the region, and the paper can be read through its app. Video reports and updates on Instagram and Facebook accompany the print and web editions, and NEUES LAND directs its Styrian readers to the same bauernzeitung.at platform.

The digital shift matters for a paper whose readers are spread across remote valleys and rural districts and whose subject matter, above all market prices and policy deadlines, increasingly moves faster than a weekly print cycle. By keeping the printed weekly, with its national and state sections, as the core product while moving breaking agricultural news, market data and classifieds online, the Österreichische BauernZeitung follows the same path as other European association and trade papers, but from an unusually strong print base, with its 90,300-copy weekly circulation still anchoring the whole operation.

Place in Austria's Agricultural Media

The Österreichische BauernZeitung occupies a singular position in Austria's media landscape. It is at once a trade paper for a single industry, the organ of a major political association, and, by its own audited self-description, the largest weekly newspaper serving the countryside as a whole. Austria supports a dense agricultural press of chamber newspapers, specialist magazines for arable, livestock, wine and forestry readers, and free papers such as Blick ins Land, but the BauernZeitung is the title that combines national political reporting for farmers with state-level closeness across nearly all federal states, a combination created by the 2001 merger and maintained through its Bundesteil and Landesteil system.

From its headquarters in Vienna's 14th district, under the Bauernbund's ownership and Agrar Media's management, the paper links the world of federal and European farm politics to the individual farm, which its slogan addresses directly. More than two decades after the NÖ Bauernbündler, the OÖ Landwirtschaftszeitung, the Tiroler Bauernzeitung and NEUES LAND were brought together, the Österreichische BauernZeitung remains the common newspaper of organised Austrian farming, read weekly in farmhouses from Burgenland to Vorarlberg, and its official home online is bauernzeitung.at.