Editor’s Desk: A fond farewell to Chuck Abbott and Ag Insider

By Theodore Ross

Today, Chuck Abbott, FERN’s stalwart chronicler of American agricultural affairs, announced that he would be retiring from his post as lead writer on FERN’s Ag Insider news service. It is hard for me to imagine another reporter who has contributed more to the daily understanding of the food system at the governmental level than Chuck. His daily reports are smart and informed, a classic example of insider reporting leavened with an outsider’s wit. (If you have ever met Chuck, you know the man is handy with a pun, a trait I admire and aspire to.) But we must also announce that his retirement brings Ag Insider to an end at FERN. It is a day worth marking.

Chuck is modest. In his announcement in today’s Ag Insider, he noted that he had published “more than 10,000 stories” for the newsletter, which is technically true. However, he has in fact published more than 12,000, and that does not include his earliest days with FERN, when the newsletter was just an email sent to readers who wanted to know what the folks at USDA were up to, even if those officials did not.

What most people who read Ag Insider may not understand is that the reporting is really a pure product of Chuck’s skill, sources, and staggering capacity to produce crisp, accurate copy five days a week, over time. He is in essence a one-man news service, and when I say he cannot be replaced — as one often does in such writing — I really mean it. To my knowledge, there is no single reporter working today who can do what Chuck does with as little operational support as he’s done it with, and with the encyclopedic knowledge that he brings to the job. It is not just that he will be missed at FERN. It is truly the end of an era.

FERN has always existed to fill the gaps in a struggling media ecosystem. Chuck’s coverage continues to be urgent and necessary. But we know it’s not feasible for FERN to try to duplicate it with another reporter, or in reality, several reporters, a couple of good editors, and more; i.e. a fully staffed newsroom. So we are opening up new avenues of journalism in new formats about the food system and the environment, and I will write more about that soon. But for today, I would simply like to recognize Chuck Abbott for what he is: an original. Thank you, Chuck.