Regular readers of The Western Producer will notice story placelines from New York to New Orleans and North Dakota to North Carolina. Every week we report from towns and cities across Canada.
It is the nature of what we do, capturing information where it takes place, winnowing the story wheat from the chaff and shipping it to you in the paper and on producer.com.
We are collectors and brokers of information that is important to farmers. It is what you pay us for with your subscriptions and time spent with our products.
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More than 20 years ago, at a time when companies were being urged to create mission statements, we developed one of our own: to be the best source of agricultural news and information.
Our staff took the process seriously. We met, our editors consulted with farmers and our owners of the day and the mission statement was crafted.
We framed copies of it and hung them on the walls of our editorial offices: not for our readers but for ourselves, as reminders.
You can still find us using the phrase on producer.com.
However, with the expanded horizon of data available to today’s farmer, has our role changed?
After all, a Google search will yield information you are looking for, factual and otherwise, but only if someone has published it first. That’s what we do.
Face book will put aggregated agricultural news and news-like products in front of anyone who tells that company where they live and what they like. However, that news must first be written and edited by someone, at great expense. Again, that’s what we do.
Like grain from chaff, The Western Producer’s editorial staff harvests and then separates the facts from the rest. We aim to find the issues that are, or will be, important to you, cover the everyday, put it into useful perspective and highlight the interesting and unique that makes life and farming worth doing.
What I am now looking for is your feedback, ahead of spring seeding and calving. Are we serving your information needs and living up to our mission?
Let me know by emailing mikeraine@producer.com, texting 306-221-8931 or writing a letter to Box 2500, 2310 Millar Avenue, Sask-atoon, SK S7K 2C4.
