Applications are now open for the Food Sustainability Media Award, which aims increase the public’s awareness of food sustainability issues worldwide, find solutions, and encourage action. Launched by the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition (BCFN) and the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the award will recognize excellent professional and up-and-coming journalists from around the world who have focused their reporting on topics relating to food security, sustainable agriculture, and nutrition.
“With this award, we want to connect the everyday person with issues that are ultimately affecting all of us, and we believe media is the best route to make [this] happen,” says Monique Villa, CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, in a BCFN press release.
BCFN and Thomson Reuters Foundation believe that the media can play an influential role in the way consumers think about and interact with food, helping to create a more sustainable and just global food system. With the Food Sustainability Media Award, they aim to highlight some of the major paradoxes that are impacting the global food system—such as hunger and obesity, food and fuel, and waste and starvation—as well as propose solutions and engage the public.
Entries to the Food Sustainability Media Award will be judged in three categories: written journalism, photography, and video. One published and one unpublished piece of work will be awarded in each category. Published work will receive a €10,000 (US$10,862) cash prize, while unpublished work will receive an all-expenses paid trip to attend a Thomson Reuters Foundation media training course on food sustainability. Unpublished entries will be distributed via the Thomson Reuters Foundation and the BCFN websites, and unpublished written work will also be distributed to the Reuters wire’s 1 billion readers.
A panel of nine experts and professionals in food and agriculture policy and research, journalism, and photography will judge the shortlisted entries: Laurie Goering, TRF Climate Editor; Miranda Johnson, Environment Correspondent at The Economist; Finbarr O’Reilly, author and photographer; Marcela Villarreal, Director of Partnerships, Advocacy and Capacity Development at FAO; Danielle Nierenberg, Founder of Food Tank; Mario Calabresi, Editor in Chief of La Repubblica; Olly Buston, Director of Global Advocacy for the Jamie Oliver Food; Ruth Oniang’o, Founder of the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development; and Cassandra Waldon, Director of Communications at the IFAD.
Applications are now open and entries can be submitted on the Sustainability Media Award’s website until May 31, 2017, at midnight (London time). Winners will be announced at the 2017 BCFN Food Forum.
For more information on the entry guidelines for each category, click here.
