About Stock Journal

Stock Journal

Stock Journal is a weekly agricultural newspaper published in Adelaide, South Australia, serving the farmers, pastoralists, and agribusinesses of the state. Published continuously since 1967 — and descended from the Adelaide Stock and Station Journal of 1904 — it is the agricultural paper of South Australia, now published by Australian Community Media: the weekly the state's farmers have trusted for more than a century, from the woolbooms to the digital age.

Overview

Stock Journal is a weekly newspaper — published in print each week and online at stockjournal.com.au — covering the South Australian agricultural industry: livestock markets, cropping, wool, agribusiness, rural property, and the policy debates of the state's farming sector. Its readership is the South Australian farmer: the mixed farmers of the Mid North, the pastoralists of the Far North, the dairy farmers of the South East, and the grain growers of the Mallee and Eyre Peninsula — the readers who have made it the state's agricultural paper for generations, from the 1904 market reports to today's digital weekly — and tomorrow's.

The masthead is the South Australian flagship of ACM Agri, Australian Community Media's agricultural division, which employs more than 60 rural journalists producing Australia's largest offering of agricultural news content across five states. A single digital subscription unlocks the full ACM agricultural network: Stock Journal, The Land, Queensland Country Life, North Queensland Register, Stock & Land, Farm Weekly, and the national agricultural news website Farmonline — the complete rural press of the nation, in one login, for the South Australian reader.

History

The Stock Journal began on 22 August 1904 as the Adelaide Stock and Station Journal — subtitled "containing reports of the Adelaide and country live stock markets, also the wool, grain and produce markets" — the market intelligence of the new century's pastoral South Australia. Printed in Adelaide by Vardon & Pritchard, it concentrated primarily on market reports and advertising — the commercial intelligence of the colony's pastoral economy, the prices and the notices the industry ran on. During the 1920s the journal expanded its coverage to include political and social comment as well as agricultural subjects — the market sheet growing into a newspaper — and it was later subtitled the "official organ of the Adelaide Woolbrokers' Association, the South Australian Stocksalesmen's Association" — the institutional voice of the state's wool and livestock trades, the paper the industry's bodies chose as their own — and the state's farmers have read ever since.

On 1 February 1967, the Journal was renamed to its current title, Stock Journal — the modern masthead that has published continuously ever since, now in its sixth decade under the one name: the post-war paper for the post-war industry, the weekly that carried South Australian agriculture through the late twentieth century and into the twenty-first — and still carries it today. The paper's main office was long on Greenhill Road in Eastwood, South Australia — the Adelaide base from which the state's agricultural journalism was produced for decades. Its lineage is the commercial intelligence of the colony's pastoral economy: the market reports and advertising that made the Adelaide Stock and Station Journal indispensable to the stock agents, the woolbrokers, and the farmers — the business paper of the bush, from 1904 to today — and into tomorrow. Through the wool reserve price scheme's collapse, the grains deregulation, the Millennium Drought, and the transformation of South Australian agriculture, the Stock Journal has been the industry's paper of record — the weekly the state's farmers have read for more than a century, from the Adelaide saleyards to the Far North stations.

The paper's corporate journey mirrors the Australian rural press: from independent proprietors through Rural Press and Fairfax Media — previously owned by Fairfax Media — to Australian Community Media, acquired by Antony Catalano and Alex Waislitz's interests from Nine Entertainment in April 2019. ACM's origins trace to The Land, founded in Sydney in 1911; in 1981 the company was renamed Rural Press; by the mid-2000s Rural Press owned approximately 170 newspaper and magazine titles, predominantly in rural Australia; on 8 May 2007 Rural Press merged with John Fairfax to form Fairfax Media; Fairfax merged with Nine Entertainment in December 2018; and in April 2019 Nine sold the ACM stable — 170 newspapers and magazines — to Catalano and Waislitz's Thorney Investment Group for $115 million plus $10 million, owned 50/50.

Content

Stock Journal's journalism is the South Australian agricultural press at full strength:

• Livestock markets: the Adelaide and country saleyards — the sheep, cattle, and store markets, the stud sales, and the price trends of the state's livestock industry, from the prime lambs to the breeding ewes.
• Wool: the wool market reports — the legacy of the paper's origins as the woolbrokers' and stocksalesmen's organ, and still a core of its coverage, from the auction catalogues to the price indicators.
• Cropping and grains: the state's grain harvests, the global markets, and the broadacre innovations — from the seeding programs to the receival reports, the grain industry's year in the paper.
• Rural property: the farm sales and land market of South Australia — the listings, the auction results, and the property trends of the state's farming districts.
• Industry news: the policy debates, the research, and the business of South Australian agriculture — from water to biosecurity to trade — holding governments and industry bodies to account.

Coverage and Audience

Stock Journal serves the agricultural industry of South Australia: the mixed farmers, the pastoralists, the woolgrowers, the grain growers, and the agribusiness professionals who read the paper to run their businesses. Its audience spans the state: from the Adelaide Plains to the South East, from the Mid North to Eyre Peninsula, from the Mallee to the pastoral Far North — the full geography of South Australian farming, in print every week and online every day.

Ownership

Stock Journal is published by Australian Community Media (ACM), the regional media company owned 50/50 by Antony Catalano and Alex Waislitz's Thorney Investment Group since April 2019. ACM's origins trace to The Land, founded in Sydney in 1911; through Rural Press, Fairfax Regional Media, and the Fairfax–Nine merger, the agricultural mastheads arrived in ACM's hands in 2019 — the South Australian weekly in the national agricultural stable.

Digital Presence

Stock Journal operates online at stockjournal.com.au — its official website — within the ACM agricultural network. The digital subscription unlocks unlimited access to all articles, the searchable directory of upcoming livestock, property, and clearing sales, and the digital weekly — and, with a single login, the full network: The Land, Queensland Country Life, North Queensland Register, Stock & Land, Farm Weekly, and the national agricultural news website Farmonline. The website publishes between the weekly print editions — the South Australian agricultural news as it happens. ACM Ag employs more than 60 rural journalists producing Australia's largest offering of agricultural news content across five states — while remaining committed to the print publications, some going strong for over 100 years — the Stock Journal among them, the 1904 paper still publishing weekly.

For South Australian agriculture, Stock Journal remains what the Adelaide Stock and Station Journal founded in 1904: the farmer's paper — the markets, the wool sales, and the industry, week after week, for more than a century, in print and online, from the Adelaide Plains to the Far North — every week, without fail.