The IFAJ-Yara Award for Reporting on Sustainable World Agriculture is open to articles, internet productions or radio/TV broadcasts on the broad themes of hunger, feeding the world sustainably and meeting the challenge of providing nutrition to a growing world population. This award provides a unique professional development opportunity for all IFAJ members to participate in a broad-based contest that is relevant to current global issues – the goal of higher food production with a lower carbon footprint. It is open to all members; guilds are not required to put forward a candidate.
THEME
How to feed a still growing world population? Can we double agricultural production towards 2050? Experts say we must double agricultural production during the next 40 years in order to avoid hunger and in order also to produce agricultural products for energy purposes. At the same time agricultural land will only increase slightly, and water may be an even more limited resource.
Eligibility
- Individual IFAJ member journalists from countries with paid-up memberships are eligible to enter. This means national guilds are not required to have a judging or selection process to decide on an entry to go forward.
- One entry per member is allowed.
- Entries may be 1) a written article, 2) a radio programme or 3) a television/internet production that touch on the broad themes of hunger, feeding the world sustainably or meeting the challenge of providing nutrition to a growing world population. Entries can be macro (global, regional or national) or micro (local) points of view. Entries may focus on a broad array of topics including food supply and demand, trade, production agriculture practices, and policy.
- Judging will be based on objectivity, balance, content, clarity and relevance to the theme. Solid organization, depth of reporting and brightness of style will be examined
- Entries have no length (words, minutes, etc.) requirement, but must have been published or aired in one (print) issue or single broadcast; do not enter a series of reports
- For this first contest, entries must have been published or aired between January 1, 2010 and June 1, 2011; or scheduled to be published or aired no later than December 31, 2011
- Entries must be received by June 15, 2011
- Entries, submitted in electronic format such as PDF or MP3, must be submitted to the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) c/o Secretary General Owen Roberts, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada (email owen(at)uoguelph.ca). You may also send an email directing judges to the entry via a link to broadcast sites such as www.youtube.com
- All entries must be written or spoken in English. The committee of judges will consider less perfect English from participants whose primary language is not English
- The following information must be provided in the e-mail to which the article is attached:
–Name, address, e-mail address and telephone number of the entrant;
–Name of IFAJ member association of which the entrant is a member;
–Name of publication, broadcast station or Web site where entry was published or aired;
–Date and/or issue of broadcast, posting, airing, or publication;
–The intended audience for the entry (consumers? farmers?)
- For print entries, the layout and design will not be considered in the judging.
PRIZES
Cash prizes for first (3,000 euro), second (1,500 euro) and third place (750 euro) will be awarded, with the winners of the contest announced at the 2011 IFAJ Congress in Canada, September 2011. IFAJ will publish the names of the winners and will publish their work at www.www.ifaj.org. IFAJ reserves the right to use the entries and subsequent critiques in future professional development activities.
JUDGING
A panel of three judges will form an independent committee. The judging panel is lead by distinguished professor Henning Otte Hansen, senior adviser at the Institute of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen. Other judges will be selected from North/South America, and Africa/Asia/Australia/New Zealand.