We'd Like To Mention

Last month's (January 2026) issue of Progressive Farmer shocked Georgia cattleman Al Awbrey.

"Lord knows. That's my mother," the 76-year-old recounts saying as he looked at Cornerstones, a longtime reader-favorite collection of quotes and photos on a different topic each month.

The theme was "Youth," and the photo was four barefoot children in a freshly hoed field circa 1930.

Awbrey was not expecting to see a photo of his mother that day. She was around 7 years old when the photo was taken but lived into her early 90s. The other children in the photograph were her cousins, one of whom flew a B-24 bomber in World War II. He was shot down over Yugoslavia and spent 14 months as a prisoner of war in Germany.

Nearly 100 years later, the Heard County, Georgia, cotton field in which they were photographed remains in production, Awbrey told me, as the heifers he was working mooed in the background.

I don't know when we first ran the photo of Awbrey's family in a previous issue, but I'm grateful he shared the story with us. I never expected to hear such a story about a black-and-white photo from our archives.

While so much of today's media is consumed on a screen, Awbrey's story is a testament to the power of words and photos printed on paper and how they can catch your eye and draw connections across time and place. And, boy, does Progressive Farmer understand time.

Few magazines in circulation today have archives like we do. Leonidas L. Polk -- a farmer, Confederate veteran, newspaperman and former North Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture -- published our first issue on Feb. 10, 1886.

"Progressive Farmer is a chronicler of how agriculture rose to the challenges of Reconstruction, struggled through the Great Depression, provided the food and fiber needs of a country caught up in two world wars and worked through the postwar technology boom and the massive agriculture industry consolidation still happening today," explains Greg Horstmeier, Editor-in-Chief of DTN.

What started as a weekly newspaper for North Carolina farmers is now a national magazine published 11 times each year. Progressive Farmer's look, feel and geographic scope have changed with the times.

For any publication to survive 140 years, it must evolve; but to stand the test of time, it must also have an enduring purpose. For us, that purpose is to help farmers and ranchers identify and adapt to shifting agronomic, market and political environments.

At the time of our magazine's founding, calling something progressive implied a forward-thinking philosophy that favors modernization and emphasizes efficiency.

What's modern now will be outdated at some point in the future. A more efficient solution to today's problem du jour will inevitably come to pass. Change is constant, and in the present world, it feels like it's happening faster than ever.

Agriculture will keep changing; so will Progressive Farmer. I don't know what either will look like 10, 20 or 140 years from now, but what I do know is that our purpose -- to help farmers navigate and adapt to our rapidly evolving world -- will carry us through, together.

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-- You may email Katie at katie.dehlinger@dtn.com, or follow Katie on social platform X @KatieD_DTN

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