Jane Craigie winner of the 2024 Podcast of the Year

Many thanks to Ben Eagle for sponsoring the BGAJ Podcast of the Year, an award which celebrates the people behind the microphone.

Kindly sponsored by specialist rural podcast production agency RuralPod Media, the new award for 2024 celebrates podcasts produced by Guild members and shines a light on impact on the audiences they serve.

Here’s Ben’s report:

It was an honour to introduce the Podcast of the Year Award this year to the Guild’s prestigious collection of prizes. We received a large number of entries and on behalf of the judges I want to thank everybody who took the time to enter. The award has been introduced to celebrate agricultural podcasts and the producers behind them, recognising the growth of podcasting as a communications format, but also to encourage agricultural and rural podcasters within the Guild to innovate and be creative with the craft, especially regarding sound design and soundscapes.

Our chosen winner this year exemplified this creativity with an illustration of the soundscape, food and food culture of New York, alongside a well-considered script to carry the listener through the podcast episode. Jane Craigie was awarded the Podcast of the Year 2024 for her entry ‘Sustainable Agriculture; part of The Science Behind Your Salad Podcast, funded by BASF. The entry discussed sustainable agriculture in the context of the location for the recording – New York – and included a sustainable cotton summit held at the UN Headquarters in Manhattan. Jane took a broad approach to the content, exploring urban farming, community, food culture and history, as well as sustainability issues. However, it was the use of sound recorded on location that most impressed us and left us wanting to hear more. The podcast episode exemplified the potential for creative production in the agri and food podcast sphere.

Our runner up was Johann Tasker for his entry ‘UK farmers donate 210 pickup trucks to war-torn Ukraine’, part of the Farmers Weekly Podcast. The entry’s subject told an important news story, showcasing the humanity behind a time of war. The production values were high and the edit showed creativity as well as showing farmers how they could help, directly engaging the podcast’s audience.
We also wanted to give a special mention to Chris Brayford for his entry: ‘Overcoming grief to raise mental health awareness in farming with Andy and Lynda Eadon during Mind Your Head Week’; part of Farmers Guardian Podcast. As an interviewer Chris engaged well and was able to display a great deal of empathy with the interviewees in this excerpt whilst remaining separate. An important subject to engage with, with clear impact for the audience.

– Ben Eagle, RuralPod Media