About Wochenblatt für Landwirtschaft und Landleben

Wochenblatt für Landwirtschaft und Landleben

The Wochenblatt für Landwirtschaft und Landleben is one of the oldest continuously published specialist journals in the German-speaking world. Appearing weekly in Münster since 1844, it is the agricultural weekly for Westphalia-Lippe — and the founding title of the Landwirtschaftsverlag Münster, today one of Europe's leading agricultural media houses. With an IVW-audited sold circulation of 50,437 copies in the third quarter of 2025, it reaches farm families, agricultural professionals, policymakers and institutions across the region. As the press organ of the Westphalian-Lippian Agricultural Association and the Chamber of Agriculture of North Rhine-Westphalia, it combines technical reporting on crops, livestock and technology with market data, policy coverage and a family section on garden, health, money and law.

Overview

Few publications can claim 180 years of uninterrupted weekly appearance. The Wochenblatt has accompanied Westphalian agriculture from the pre-industrial era through mechanisation, the Green Revolution, European agricultural policy and the digital age — a continuity that makes its archive a unique record of rural Germany. Its readers are primarily farmers and their families, members of the agricultural professions including horticulture and forestry, as well as politicians, associations and official institutions concerned with agriculture in Westphalia-Lippe.

The journal's dual character defines its content: it is simultaneously a technical trade journal and a family magazine. The agricultural section carries technology reports, crop production and animal husbandry, market data, reviews of the specialist press and reports from politics, industry and business. The family section addresses the farm household with specialist contributions under headings such as garden, health, money and law — plus reportage on country life. Special editions with changing thematic focuses supplement the weekly rhythm.

Published by the Landwirtschaftsverlag GmbH of Münster, the Wochenblatt is the historic core of a media group that today publishes some 30 specialist and consumer titles — from top agrar and profi to Landlust — and employs around 600 to 800 people in Germany and abroad. The group's claim to be Europe's leading specialist publisher for agricultural media rests on the foundation this weekly laid.

That foundation is also institutional. As the press organ of the Westfälisch-Lippischer Landwirtschaftsverband and the Landwirtschaftskammer Nordrhein-Westfalen, the Wochenblatt is woven into the organisational fabric of Westphalian agriculture: it is where the associations speak to their members and where members recognise their collective voice. Few trade journals enjoy such a structural role — it makes the weekly not just a medium about agriculture, but a medium of the agricultural community itself.

History

The Wochenblatt's history begins in 1844, when the first issue appeared in Münster — making it one of the oldest specialist journals in the German language still published today. For more than a century it served Westphalian agriculture through empire, republic, war and reconstruction, adapting its content to each era's farming while keeping its weekly rhythm and regional identity.

The modern publishing house grew directly from the title. In 1946, with the permission of the British military government to print the "Landwirtschaftliche Wochenblatt für Westfalen and Lippe" — as the licence read, half in English, half in German — three farmers founded what became the Landwirtschaftsverlag Münster. The values the founders brought — persistence, sincerity, pragmatism and rootedness, in the words of the supervisory board chairman Friedrich Steinmann — still define the house. From a pure agricultural publisher it grew into an internationally active media and services group: by its 75th anniversary in 2021, the group counted more than 20 participations in five European countries, annual revenue of almost 120 million euros and over 800 employees, ranking among Germany's ten largest specialist publishers.

The Wochenblatt itself remained the group's "Keimzelle" — its seed crystal. In September 2025 the group appointed Olaf Holzhäuser, a media manager with years at Hubert Burda Media and Red Bull Media House, as Publisher Fachmedien for the Landwirtschaftsverlag and the Lebensmittel Praxis-Verlag, responsible for 13 specialist media brands including top agrar, profi, Elite, the Wochenblatt, Lebensmittel Praxis and the special-interest titles Reiter & Pferde in Westfalen and Rheinisch-Westfälischer Jäger. The editor-in-chief of the Wochenblatt is Patrick Liste.

Content and Sections

The weekly issue, in a format slightly larger than DIN A4, is organised around the farm's working year and the family's needs. Technology reports examine machinery and equipment; crop production and livestock sections carry the agronomic core — varieties, feeding, herd management; market data tracks prices for grain, milk, meat and inputs; reviews of the specialist press keep readers oriented in the wider agricultural media; and reports from politics, industry and the economy cover the decisions in Düsseldorf, Berlin and Brussels that shape farm incomes.

The family section gives the journal its distinctive warmth: specialist contributions on garden, health, money and law, written for the farm household, alongside reportage on country life. Classified and display advertising — machinery, livestock, land, jobs — make the weekly an agricultural marketplace. Special editions with changing thematic focuses allow deeper treatment of topics from building to renewable energy.

As the press organ of the Westfälisch-Lippischer Landwirtschaftsverband and the Landwirtschaftskammer Nordrhein-Westfalen for Westphalia-Lippe — and alongside "Die Waldbauern" of the Waldbauernverband NRW — the Wochenblatt also carries the associations' communications to their members, a function that underlines its institutional role in the region's agricultural life. The book programme of the Landwirtschaftsverlag extends the brand beyond the weekly: the Wochenblatt's country cookbooks and craft books — baking books from the farmhouse kitchen, creative rural crafts — carry the title's trusted voice onto the bookshelf, reaching readers who may never have worked a field.

Publisher and Organization

The Wochenblatt für Landwirtschaft und Landleben is published by the Landwirtschaftsverlag GmbH of Münster (Hülsebrockstr. 2, 48165 Münster), one of Germany's largest specialist publishers and among the 100 largest media companies in the country. The group publishes around 30 specialist and consumer titles for agriculture and rural life — including top agrar, profi, Elite, SuS, Landlust, Lebensmittel Praxis and Reiter Revue — plus books and digital services such as traktorpool and rimondo. The editor-in-chief of the Wochenblatt is Patrick Liste; since September 2025 Olaf Holzhäuser serves as Publisher Fachmedien for the group's agricultural and food titles. The journal appears weekly in German, with an IVW-audited sold circulation of 50,437 copies (Q3/2025) and a distributed circulation of 51,339. Its ISSN (print) is 2365-2942, and its weekly appearance has continued without interruption into 2026.

Digital Presence

The Wochenblatt's digital home is within the top agrar brand world at topagrar.com/markenwelt/wochenblatt/, connecting the weekly to the Landwirtschaftsverlag's digital ecosystem — the top agrar portal, the traktorpool machinery marketplace, rimondo's equestrian platform and the group's other online services. Subscription management and single-issue sales run through the group's shop systems and subscription services such as presseplus.

The group's digital strategy treats the Wochenblatt as part of a cross-channel agricultural media offering: print, digital and events are managed together under the publishing leadership, with marketing and product management combined to serve the customer across channels. Through this integration, a journal founded in 1844 reaches its readers wherever they now make their decisions — at the kitchen table with the weekly, and on the smartphone in the tractor cab. Subscription services describe it as a thoroughly researched, current and critical advisory medium in its agricultural section, with valuable household and family tips and reportage on country life — a characterisation that captures the dual identity the title has carried for nearly two centuries.