Charles Walters Jr.

Acres USA was acquired by Swift Communications in 2016.

A subsequent book, Raw Material Economics: A NORM Primer was published in 1982. This volume is still in print and updates the status of raw material economics into the mid-1980s. Walters also authored a paperback booklet entitled: PARITY—The Key to Prosperity Unlimited. The list below includes these publications and many others.

In addition to writing and publishing hundreds of articles about Raw Material Economics in the pages of Acres USA, Walters authored three major works on the subject. His second book, Unforgiven (1971), now in its second edition (2003), is the definitive text on Raw Material Economics derived from in-depth interviews with Carl H. Wilken, shortly before Wilken's death in 1968.

In 1970, despondent with internal politics at the NFO, Walters founded Acres USA, a monthly magazine that promotes the family farm and organic farming and served as the executive editor for 28 years. Remembering the origins of Acres USA in 1995 for the journal's 25th anniversary issue, Walters said, "I didn't have the money to buy a paper, so I started one. I wanted the freedom that went with making my own decisions without the blessings of higher approved authority." Later, he assumed the status of editor emeritus while his son, Fred Walters, published the magazine from his home in Austin, Texas. Charles Walters Jr. remained in Kansas City, Missouri.

A turning point for him, as for many Americans, was the publication of Rachael Carson's Silent Spring in September 1962, which documented the detrimental effects pesticides were having on the environment. Carson's narrative would be the cornerstone of the point-of-view Walters would bring to his writings and social criticism.

During the 1960s, Walters became associated with the National Farmers Organization (NFO) and edited the organization's news publication, NFO Reporter. He also supplied numerous articles on farm economics for the publication, observing and documenting many of the activities of the NFO. One of his books, Holding Action, discusses the events surrounding the milk holding actions of 1967.

Over half of the collection is devoted to photographs documenting the activities of the NFO throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The photographs include images of members of the NFO leadership, conventions, holding actions and other activities sponsored by the NFO. The majority of the photographs were taken by Walters.

The Charles Walters Papers (1937–2003, n.d.) are housed in the Special Collections Department at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. The papers contain correspondence and printed matter related to Walters' research, as well as copies of some of Walters' publications. Material related to the NFO includes correspondence, legal documents, printed matter, and includes both paper records and microfilm.

Charles Walters Jr. (June 18, 1926 – January 14, 2009) was an economist, journalist, publisher, editor, author, entrepreneur, and family farm advocate. A tireless advocate for "peoples capitalism", Walters was a president of the National Organization for Raw Materials (NORM), a long-time executive board member, and founder and editor of Acres USA, the North American voice of eco-agriculture, organic farming, and the family farm.

Another important figure to the organic farming movement whose ideas had disappeared from public consciousness was that of Maynard Murray (1910–1983), a medical doctor and a pioneer in merging the disciplines of biology, health and agriculture as early as the 1930s when he began experimenting with "sea-solids" – mineral salts that remain after total sea water evaporation to reveal that trace minerals and other elements present in sea water were optimum for growth and health of both land and sea life. Acres published Murray's Sea Energy Agriculture in 1976 and again in 2001. Largely ignored during his lifetime, Murray's lifelong quest contributed greatly to our understanding of the role of trace minerals in the healthy growth of all organisms on the planet.