Jim Patrico

Commercial Photographer

Jim resides in a Midwestern town with a population of about 2,200, where there is one grocery store, one lumberyard, and not a single traffic light. It’s an appropriate homebase for a longtime, award-winning agricultural photojournalist. In northwest Missouri, Jim is surrounded by acres of corn and soybeans and grazing land for beef cattle. 

Early in life, Jim found something he loves to do and has spent most of his career doing it—photographing the lives of farmers, ranchers, and rural people just like his Plattsburg, Missouri, neighbors—and the equipment, technologies, and landscapes that inform their daily lives. 

Jim worked as photo editor for The Progressive Farmer for 20 years. The role gave him access to agricultural landscapes, farmers, and production stories in 49 U.S. states, 25 countries, and five continents. 

Along the way, Jim has picked up a trunkload of photography awards. He has won the American Agricultural Editors Association’s Photographer of the Year award eight times, and his photos have appeared in a variety of newspapers, magazines, and books. He has hitched rides on helicopters for that perfect aerial shot of a combine harvesting corn in Nebraska, pressed himself to the ground to photograph wheat against the sky in Oregon, and walked alongside farmers in Kenya as they’ve shared their stories. 

With TILL, Jim continues his global exploration of the world of agriculture, bringing to life through photography the people and places that feed the globe.