WASHINGTON, April 6, 2015 - Agri-Pulse founder and President Sara Wyant was named to the annual Folio: “Top Women in Media” recognition in the Entrepreneurs category. She will be recognized at a June awards ceremony at the Grand Hyatt in New York City.
Wyant was the only agricultural media professional included in this year’s awards, which also honored women from such mainstream media as Forbes, Time Magazine and The New York Times.
Folio: says the annual list “celebrates the creativity and accomplishments of our female colleagues, sometimes against a glass ceiling, other times against the grain. These women have fearlessly moved their teams, brands, and companies forward, made strides in their respective markets, and created lasting impressions on their colleagues.”
As a veteran farm policy editor, Wyant founded Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc. in 2004, based on her instincts that agriculture and rural leaders were not getting consistent, high-quality reporting out of Washington, D.C. She launched a weekly paid circulation e-newsletter the following year, covering a wide range of farm, food and rural legislative and regulatory issues.
Wyant continued to work out of her home and do contract writing, speaking and consulting to supplement her income until newsletter revenues reached a point she could devote full-time to the company. During this same period, her initial instincts were proven right - time and time again - as both mainstream newspapers and agriculture publications started downsizing and eventually closing their Washington news bureaus.
In 2007, Wyant acquired the Webster Agriculture Letter, adding hundreds of new subscribers and a seasoned mentor in Editor James Webster, a Washington insider who founded numerous agricultural newsletters and worked at both USDA and the Senate Agriculture Committee. Agri-Pulse Communications, continued to expand, adding a major news web site, the Daily Harvest early morning e-mail summary and numerous other tailored communications products.
Today, Agri-Pulse has the largest team of reporters focused exclusively on agricultural and rural policy, including five full-time journalists and three contributing writers in Washington, DC, two broadcast journalists based outside the Beltway, and five staff involved with writing, social media, marketing and administrative duties in Camdenton, Missouri.
Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc. now reaches over 5,000 of the industry’s most influential “movers and shakers,” including Congressman and Senators and their staffs, top government officials, C-suite agribusiness executives and most of the key farm and commodity leaders across the country. Wyant is one of the most sought after speakers on Ag and rural policy in the country.
In addition to her company commitments, Wyant is an at-large representative on the 2014 National FFA Foundation Board of Trustees. She formerly served as chairwoman of the Farm Foundation’s board of trustees and is a past president of the American Agricultural Editors’ Association.
Wyant has been awarded a producer communications award from the United Soybean Board, an Oscar in Agriculture award for excellence in agricultural reporting from the American Agricultural Editors’ Association and a leadership award from Agriculture Future of America. In 2013, she was recognized for outstanding service to agriculture by the Missouri Farm Bureau.
Wyant gained her entrepreneurial spirit, along with first-hand knowledge of crop and livestock production from her parents, Dean and Betty Wyant, while growing up on a farm near Marengo, Iowa. She and husband Allan Johnson, parents of sons Jason and Jordan, also own the farm where her husband’s family originally established a homestead near Almont, N.D.
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