IFAJ could be coming to you in 2025. Secretary General Adrian Bell explains the thinking behind IFAJ’s latest partner-supported initiative, the Syngenta Global Network Partnership.
“I wear my IFAJ membership as a badge of honor everywhere I go.”
The words of an IFAJ Young Leader, remarking on how their association’s accession to IFAJ has opened doors and created opportunities. It’s a neat summation of how – and why – membership of IFAJ is aspirational for all those involved with agricultural journalism and communication.
Aspiration translates into numbers. IFAJ’s membership numbers have doubled in ten years, surely an impressive metric for any organisation. With a unique role as the only global network bringing together those who tell the world about agriculture, IFAJ’s success breeds success. The more members we have, the more members we attract. Who doesn’t want to be part of an amazing network and the increasingly diverse benefits that membership brings?
As we grow, so must we adapt to the changing needs of our membership. From its very beginning, IFAJ’s mission has been outbound: ‘the studying of agricultural journalism in various countries’ and ‘providing agricultural journalists with opportunities to meet and exchange experiences’.
In the past, members have come to IFAJ – through our flagship event, the Congress, and over the years through such events as Berlin’s Green Week, in-country press tours and, latterly, our mid-term Executive Meetings across Europe, Latin America and, in 2025, Africa.
But newer IFAJ members can find themselves disadvantaged. Often from emerging economies, they may face a bigger financial barrier to international travel. Yet they’re also often those most in need of IFAJ’s network, support, and guild and professional development opportunities.
Support for IFAJ’s mission
So, now it’s time for IFAJ to come to you. At the heart of Syngenta’s new partnership with IFAJ lies enthusiastic support both for the mission of IFAJ, as well as the journalists around the world who are committed to agriculture. No longer will a guild’s membership of IFAJ be limited to eligibility for a press card and participation in online meetings. Instead, with Syngenta’s assistance, we can develop more activities ‘in the field’.
Three primary objectives support the Global Network Partnership (GNP):
- Improving professional development for agricultural journalists and communicators;
- Strengthening national guilds and encouraging new ones;
- Promoting best practices in the agricultural reporting and public relations industries.
All three points are important, but it’s perhaps the second one which is most important for IFAJ’s future. There is a mutually beneficial relationship between IFAJ and its member guilds, each reliant on the other. They must be happy, healthy and energised: a happy guild keeps its members engaged, a healthy guild keeps engaged with IFAJ, and an energised guild brings new ideas, activities and creativity to our entire profession. Delivering that middle objective gives us the means to achieve the remaining two.
On the road
This is the start of an IFAJ roadshow. We’re planning Global Network Events region by region, taking in Africa, Asia, South America, North America and Europe. ‘Piggybacking’ on existing events, such as major agricultural shows or exhibitions, will stretch our budget further and increase engagement and exposure.
In planning these events and programmes, we’ll also take inspiration from earlier IFAJ successes, such as reporting workshops in Georgia and Ireland, radio training in The Gambia, an agricultural journalist summit in Brazil that precipitated the formation of the Brazilian guild just a year later – and a 2022 fact-finding visit in Guinea, organised by IFAJ member guild Amedar, that is now shaping up to be one of the very first GNP deliverables.
Earlier this month, I met officials of the Chambre Nationale d’Agriculture de Guinée (the Guinean National Chamber of Agriculture) while they attended an Africa investment forum in London. The meeting was a direct result of our 2022 visit (when the presence of five British agricultural journalists even drew the attention of the Guinean prime minister); the satisfying outcome was a proposal to develop a memorandum of understanding, drawing on IFAJ’s resource and knowledge, to support and grow agricultural journalism in Guinea. It paves the way for an active project, encompassing journalistic training and skill development to facilitate effective knowledge mobilisation to farmers, to be delivered both on the ground and remotely.
We’re hoping to leverage the GNP funding further still by using the forthcoming Executive Meeting in South Africa, in March 2025, as a ‘springboard’ – either inviting first-time participants from African guilds to the event, or having our Global Network Partners set up in-person meetings and workshops for member guilds across the continent.
Other events are planned too, and in all of these we have the opportunity to call upon Syngenta as an active partner – perhaps using a Syngenta facility as a meeting venue, adding a press tour to an existing event (as we did earlier this year in Rotterdam, at the World Seed Congress), or leveraging Syngenta’s own global network and partnerships to add depth and variety to our events.
Who are the Global Network Partners?
These are the IFAJ members volunteering to deliver the Global Network Partnership on the ground. They’ll include the IFAJ Presidium, as well as IFAJ Ambassadors – skill-builders and subject-matter experts, drawn from our 5,000-strong membership.
They’ll organise and lead these events, making use of their own connections and experience to blend content, networking and the essence of IFAJ: the belief that every country should benefit from a vibrant, professional and well-skilled agricultural journalism sector, as an important tool for agricultural development.
Get involved
A successful outcome for GNP will demonstrate the reach and effectiveness of IFAJ’s network. If the GNP sounds like the sort of IFAJ project you’d like to support, and you’ve ideas to offer, contacts who can help make things happen, and expertise to share, get in touch. By building and strengthening guilds, we build a stronger IFAJ too.
Adrian Bell
IFAJ Secretary General