What a way to ring in the new year! After surviving the Christmas blizzard that hit most of the country, I kicked off 2023 with a new title and a new job — editor of The Farmer.
Paula Mohr retired at the end of 2022 after 18 years with Farm Progress, and I know that these will be big shoes to fill, but I am up to the challenge.
I come to The Farmer from our neighbors to the west — Dakota Farmer and Nebraska Farmer — where I have been senior staff writer for the past couple of years. I joined the Farm Progress team in 2014 as senior staff writer for National Hog Farmer magazine. My ag journalism career goes back to 1990, when I started with a publication outside of the Farm Progress family covering Minnesota agriculture. So, I am coming home, so to speak.
As a farm kid of the ’80s, I was encouraged to get a college degree and then maybe come back to the farm. That college degree, in ag journalism no less, took me to a very brief stint working for an Iowa newspaper. I then returned to my native state to work for a couple of southern Minnesota newspapers as a general news reporter, before focusing solely on agriculture for the past 33 years. Though it never worked to return to the family farm, I have remained close, helping in the fall as my schedule allowed until my brother’s retirement in 2016.
I have been very fortunate that for other than that short stint in Iowa, I have been able to call Minnesota “home” for my working career. I did attend college at South Dakota State University — and the Jackrabbits are still near and dear to my heart — but Minnesota is my home.
History with The Farmer
My connection to The Farmer goes back further than my journey down the journalism road.
Growing up on a corn, soybean and hog farm in south-central Minnesota, The Farmer always had a place in our mail pile and was thoroughly read. Little did I know way back when that I would one day be the editor of this fine magazine.
Our Farm Progress family has a herd of talented writers and editors across the country, many of whom have contributed to The Farmer over the years. Paula has been gracious enough to print some of the articles penned by yours truly from time to time — mostly the “Hog Outlook” column that I started providing for the Farm Progress magazines over the past year.
I look forward to meeting new faces, and also rekindling old friendships in the Minnesota agriculture circle.
I also look forward to continuing the legacy that Paula Mohr carried on from those who came before her. Editors and writers do what we do for you, the reader. With that in mind, I feel it is my duty to give you what you want to see in your magazine.
Please feel free to drop me a line at kevin.schulz@farmprogress.com to offer story ideas, or just comments about what you would like to see more or less of in The Farmer.
