Farm Progress
| Magazine publishing company | |
| Industry | Farming, ranching |
| Founded | 1819 |
| Headquarters | St. Charles, Illinois, United States |
| Parent | Penton Media |
| Website | www |
Farm Progress is the publisher of 22 agricultural and ranching magazines. The company dates back nearly 200 years. Farm Progress Companies is owned by Penton Media.
Farm Progress has the oldest known continuously published magazine with Prairie Farmer, which was launched in 1841. The company publishes 18 regional magazines with local coverage of each agricultural community. Annually, Farm Progress produces four farm shows including the Farm Progress Show, which launched in 1953.
The company currently known as "Farm Progress" started in 1819 with the American Farmer magazine. Prairie Farmer started in 1841, followed by Wallaces Farmer in 1855, which helped chronicle the vast changes in Iowa agriculture as well as providing information to help farmers trim costs and boost profits. Three generations of the Wallace family; Henry Cantwell Wallace, Henry A. Wallace, and Henry Browne Wallace, owned and operated Wallaces' Farmer, which was then a newspaper.
The Farm Progress affiliate Prairie Farmer purchased radio station WLS from Sears in 1928 and operated it primarily as a service to farmers. The station moved to the Prairie Farmer Building on West Washington Street in Chicago, Illinois where it remained for 32 years.
In 1959, American Broadcasting-Paramount Theaters bought the Farm Progress Group, largely to acquire WLS and consolidate it with ABC station WENR. In 1986, ABC merged with Capital Cities and in 1996, the Disney Company purchased Capital Cities/ABC. In 1997, the Disney Company sold the Farm Progress Companies to Rural Press. Rural Press merged with Fairfax in 2007. In 2012, Fairfax sold Farm Progress to Penton Media.
In 1953, Prairie Farmer teamed with WLS Radio in Chicago to host a field day where farmers could see first-hand the progress being made in farming equipment, along with seed varieties and ag chemicals.
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Wikipedia