Upon retirement from academia, Whatley focused on promoting his system of small-scale farming, quickly becoming a nationally known expert and an inspiration to readers of "Mother Earth News" and "Organic Gardening Magazine" in the 1980s. To further expand his audience and to deliver his message for turning a small farm into a profitable enterprise, Whatley traveled extensively in the US and overseas, giving training seminars and sharing his ideas. Many of his ideas appeared over time in "The New Farm Magazine" and in his monthly "Small Farm Technical Newsletter", which reached about 20,000 subscribers in fifty states and twenty-five foreign countries.