Food Sustainability Media Award Winners Announced

by Helen Reeve
Monday, 4 December 2017 09:38 GMT

The Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF) and the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) Foundation unveiled the winners of the 2017 Food Sustainability Media Award today.

The announcement was made at a ceremony held as part of the BCFN Foundation’s 8th International Forum on Food and Nutrition in Milan.

Launched in December 2016, the media award initiative aims to draw public attention to the issue of food sustainability through recognising outstanding coverage of issues relating to food security, sustainability, agriculture and nutrition.

An expert panel of judges selected one winner - based on a number of criteria including substance, originality and creativity - in each of the six award categories; written journalism, video and photography, both published and unpublished. The winners of the published categories will receive a cash prize of €10,000. Those awarded of the unpublished categories will receive an all-expenses paid trip to attend a Thomson Reuters Foundation journalism training course on food sustainability, to be held in London next year.

“When we talk about hunger and food issues, we often focus on the world’s poorest countires, where millions of people are undernourished ,” says Thomson Reuters Foundation CEO Monique Villa. “But rich countries have their own serious problems with food, including growing rates of obesity and rampant food waste. These awards focused on bringing the world’s food paradoxes to a wider audience, and the winners have all produced unique and compelling work of an outstanding calibre. We hope their coverage inspires people around the world to engage with these vital issues and work towards global solutions.”

We are delighted to see how professionals from all over the world have risen to the challenge set by this award. They have succeeded in shifting public attention to the issue of food sustainability, across a broad and international audience. Now it's up to all of us to act to find possible solutions - institutions and stakeholders, with a holistic approach able to look at all aspects of the problem, as well as ordinary people who, by adopting sustainable food choices, can make a the difference, said Guido Barilla, BCFN Chairman.

All finalist entries also entered the initiative’s Best of the Web Award. This award was chosen by the public, who voted for the entry that they most wanted to see recognised for excellence in reporting on food sustainability. The winner of the Best of the Web prize also receives a place on the Thomson Reuters Foundation training course on food sustainability, along with the two runners-up in each of the unpublished categories.

All winning unpublished entries will be distributed via the Thomson Reuters Foundation and the BCFN Foundation websites. The winning unpublished article will also be distributed through the Reuters newswire, reaching an estimated 1 billion readers.

The winners of the 2017 Food Sustainability Media Award are:

Photography published category

 Supersize: The Dizzying Grandeur of 21st-Century Agriculture, George Steinmetz, New York Times

Photography unpublished category

Globesity – Silvia Landi

Video published category

Food Wastage in Ghana – Justice Baidoo, Joy News Today

Video unpublished category

Unpeeling the rot in the mango value chain – Musdalafa Lyaga

Written published category

Maggot Revolution – Gloria Dickie, bioGraphic

Written unpublished category

India battles hunger amid wastage of USD 13 billion worth of food - Uzmi Athar

Best of the Web

Ripe With Promise: A Homegrown Solution to High-Yield, Low-Nutrition Foods - Merin Porter

See website to view full entries: http://www.goodfoodmediaaward.com/#winners

The judging panel:

The winners were chosen by a panel of judges made up of leading professionals in the fields of journalism, photography, food and agricultural sustainability policy and research, including:

  • Founder of Food Tank, Danielle Nierenberg
  • Editor-in-Chief of La Repubblica, Mario Calabresi
  • Thomson Reuters Foundation Climate Editor, Laurie Goering
  • Photographer and author, Finbarr O’Reilly
  • Director of Partnerships, Advocacy and Capacity Development at the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Marcela Villarreal
  • Director of Communications at the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Cassandra Waldon
  • Director of Global Advocacy for the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation, Olly Buston
  • Founder of the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development, Ruth Oniang’o
  • Environment Correspondent at The Economist, Miranda Johnson

Submissions for the 2018 Food Sustainability Media Award will open on 15th January! Click here to register your interest.


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