We’ve been surveying readers lately – both in print and in person. One of the most intriguing things I’ve learned is: You don’t have much time to read, if you have any time for it at all.

Most of this audience admits they only have time to read dairy-related content in a magazine such as this one for three hours per week. That’s about 26 minutes per day. That’s two bathroom breaks and one coffee break per person. Or one consecutive session in the recliner before bed. Or a few minutes here and there in the pickup while waiting between appointments.

We’ve seen this increasing crunch for time coming. It’s the reason we included at-a-glance summary boxes with articles.

Interestingly, since we began including those boxes, I’ve heard fewer comments stating that it’s difficult to get through an issue before the next one comes or that you feel guilty about not reading the magazine from cover to cover. That’s encouraging to me. Those boxes are working as we planned they would: You can consume an entire issue in less time.

So, given what I know about your crunch for time, I was concerned when I heard a suggestion to dairy producers at a recent conference I attended. The trainers suggested that your dairy is becoming more of an agribusiness – and thus you should be reading the best the business press has available to offer.

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The list of publications to read included the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune, Bloomberg Businessweek and The Economist. While these are fine publications, and the suggestion to read them is also fine, there are two problems with this suggestion.

First, they all cost money. Annual subscriptions to this list of publications at the best introductory rates available would cost more than $800 per year. I know from our recent surveys that paying for a magazine is unappealing to you. (That’s why this magazine remains free for qualified, requested readers. Please call to request to keep it coming if you haven’t in the last year.)

The second problem is time. As insightful as you could become reading these publications, you don’t have time to read them. You have cows to milk, feed to mix, employees to manage, machinery to fix, etc.

Because I don’t have any of those things to do every day, one of my job responsibilities is to read them for you and keep you up-to-date on what you might have missed that might be relevant for a dairy producer.

Consider me and the other Progressive Dairyman editors your filtered-for-dairy business newswire. Our weekly enewsletter contains the summary of what we’ve read that week which pertains most to a dairy farmer. The best of the best of those summaries will appear in print from time to time.

If you’re interested in receiving these summaries, be sure to subscribe to our enewsletter (Progressive Dairyman Subscription). Or if you would prefer to receive a fax of that information (yes, our surveys also show you still use fax machines), give me a call at (208) 324-7513. I’ll add you to the list.

We hope to continue to find other ways to help you save time. Hopefully you’ll spend just a bit more of it reading.  end mark

Walt Cooley