About Southern Farmer

Southern Farmer

Overview

Southern Farmer is the southern Victorian agricultural newspaper of North East Media, the Higgins family company of Wangaratta, and one of the regional editions of its Farmer Group of rural newspapers. It is a distinct registered masthead in its own right: the Australian Communications and Media Authority's Register of Eligible News Businesses, in North East Media's entry registered on 17 December 2025, lists "Southern Farmer" as a separate newspaper masthead from its stablemate the "North East and Goulburn Murray Farmer", with both registered to the group's shared website, farmernews.com.au. It appears under its own name in the Australian Press Council's September 2026 list of constituent publications and in Country Press Australia's News Bargaining Incentive submission, and trade coverage of the company's portfolio likewise lists Southern Farmer and the North East and Goulburn Murray Farmer as separate mastheads.

One correction to this directory's inventory record should be noted plainly. The inventory places Southern Farmer at Warrnambool in the Western District, but the governing records do not corroborate that placement: Regional Media Connect, the sales network through which Country Press Australia titles are sold, groups Southern Farmer in its "Gippsland, East Gippsland and Melbourne Ranges" network, alongside the Gippsland Farmer, the Sale Gippsland Times and the Warragul & Drouin Gazette. The Western District, separately, is served by a different publisher's agricultural paper. Southern Farmer is the Farmer Group's Gippsland and southern Victorian edition; the frontmatter city in this profile retains the inventory record pending a location decision at publishing.

History

No founding date for the Southern Farmer title itself is documented in the registers and publisher records consulted, and none is asserted here. What can be documented is the framework it sits within. North East Media descends from W. T. Higgins' purchases of the Wangaratta Despatch in 1921 and the Wangaratta Chronicle in 1937, and the company remains in the hands of the Higgins family, managed by the fourth generation. Its Farmer Group of rural newspapers publishes matched regional editions across Victoria's farming districts — the North East Farmer, the North East and Goulburn Murray Farmer, and Southern Farmer for the state's south among them. The group's own cover line on its July 2026 North East Farmer edition reads "Published since 1984" — the group's claim for its Farmer publishing line, recorded here as such rather than as a founding date for this title.

The Farmer Group's editions are full newspapers in their own formats, not inserts: the group's July 2026 North East Farmer ran to a complete edition with its own cover stories, and its May 2026 Central West and Hilltops Farmer carried the strapline "Part of the Farmer Group of Rural Newspapers". Southern Farmer belongs to that system — a district edition of a statewide rural publishing group, produced within a company that prints its own newspapers at its Wangaratta headquarters.

Programming and Content

Southern Farmer is a specialist agricultural newspaper for the farming communities of Gippsland and southern Victoria — country that takes in some of the richest dairying land in Australia, together with beef, sheep, cropping and horticulture districts. Its content is carried on the Farmer Group's shared website, farmernews.com.au, whose standing sections — News, Livestock, Dairy, Cropping, Horticulture, Machinery, Viticulture and Water — describe the editorial territory the group's editions cover: livestock markets and animal health, dairy industry affairs, crop and pasture management, farm machinery, water policy and the business of farming.

The shared site publishes rolling agricultural reporting drawn from across the group's districts, with Gippsland material part of the mix — dairy effluent compliance in eastern Gippsland and the South Gippsland dairy expo at Korumburra are among the southern stories the platform has carried. Print editions of the Farmer Group follow the same model: cover stories on the season's defining questions — in July 2026, fuel and fertiliser costs, water buybacks and farm strategy through a hard season, reported from an individual farm with named farmers and photography. Southern Farmer's place in that system is the southern edition: the same group journalism, addressed to the Gippsland and southern districts' own industries, above all dairy.

Audience and Reach

The paper's audience is the farming community of Gippsland, East Gippsland and the Melbourne ranges — the territory in which its sales network places it. That is a large and distinctive readership: Gippsland is one of Australia's principal dairy regions, and its farmers are served by a shelf of district newspapers in which Southern Farmer is the agricultural specialist. No circulation figure for the title is published in the records consulted, and none is claimed; its current operation is evidenced at the register level — its separate listing, under its own name, in North East Media's December 2025 ACMA registration, the Press Council's September 2026 constituent list, and Country Press Australia's current submission to the Commonwealth — together with the live Farmer Group publishing program of which it is part, whose dated print editions were sighted through 2026.

A precision should be recorded about format. The Farmer Group's print editions sighted in 2026 are dated monthly editions, but no governing record consulted states Southern Farmer's own print cycle, and this profile asserts neither a monthly nor a weekly frequency for the title itself. The question is flagged for confirmation against a current print edition at publishing.

Digital Presence

Southern Farmer's digital home is farmernews.com.au, the Farmer Group's shared platform, which carries the group's agricultural reporting in rolling online form across its news, livestock, dairy, cropping, horticulture, machinery, viticulture and water sections. The ACMA register records farmernews.com.au as the registered content link for Southern Farmer — the same arrangement as for its stablemate the North East and Goulburn Murray Farmer, and the reason the two titles share a domain in directory listings. The platform also hosts the group's print e-editions, of which dated 2026 editions were sighted during research.

Ownership and Organisation

Southern Farmer is owned by North East Media Pty Ltd (ABN 65 006 238 277), the Wangaratta company of the Higgins family. North East Media's ACMA registration lists twenty newspaper mastheads, including the Wangaratta Chronicle, Euroa Gazette, Ovens and Murray Advertiser, Mansfield Courier, Alpine Observer, Myrtleford Times and the group's Farmer titles, with Edward Hartley Higgins — the fourth-generation managing director — as the registered contact. The company is headquartered at 37 Rowan Street, Wangaratta, operates offices at Myrtleford, Mansfield, Euroa and Hawthorn, and prints its own newspapers at Wangaratta. Through the family's Regional Media Corp it has also recently taken mastheads in New South Wales, including the Parkes Champion Post, Forbes Advocate and Cowra Guardian. Southern Farmer should not be confused with the like-named papers of other publishers: the Farmer branding used by some other Victorian rural publishers is a separate business, and the historic and overseas papers of similar name are unrelated.

Contact and Availability

Southern Farmer is published by North East Media from its Wangaratta headquarters, 37 Rowan Street, Wangaratta VIC 3677, telephone 03 5723 0100, with the published email reception@nemedia.com.au; the company's ACMA-registered contact is Edward Hartley Higgins (ehiggins@nemedia.com.au). The title's content is available online at farmernews.com.au, the Farmer Group's shared website. This directory's frontmatter retains the inventory's Warrnambool placement for the title; the register evidence places Southern Farmer's territory in Gippsland and southern Victoria, and the location field is to be settled against the publisher's records before publishing.