AgriChatUK, the Twitter discussion group that holds weekly ‘chats’ on a specified subject every Thursday evening, has been shortlisted in the CAP Communication Awards promoted by the Euopean Commission’s DG Agri as one of three ‘Innovative Communications’ finalists.
Online voting has now opened and one of the nine finalists – there are also categories for stakeholder and public communication projects – will be awarded a prize at an award presentation on December 9 in Brussels.
Members and Friends of the Guild can read about the finalist projects and cast their vote here.
Agricultural consultant Simon Haley, a Friend of the Guild, and Jez Fredenburgh, newly-appointed business reporter on Farmers Weekly and a Member of the Guild, are two co-founders of AgriChatUK.
Charles Tassell, a fruit and arable farmer in Kent, and Edward Morgan, a website editor for Farmers Weekly, were also involved from the outset and they have been joined by Adam Bedford of the British Agriculture Bureau in Brussels as a chat host, and Michael Hudson, an IT specialist at Syngenta, who compiles archives of the debates.
The award jury had this to say about AgriChatUK:
“This project proposes a direct and cost-effective way to connect farmers, policy-makers and citizens via Twitter. It challenges the target audience to put forward their views within 140 characters. It is a simple yet innovative approach to stimulate debate and reconnect people with different interests.”
Adrian Bell, the Guild’s representative at the European Network of Agricultural Journalists, an initiative supported by the EC’s agriculture and rural affairs directorate commented: “It’s great to see two people involved with the Guild being recognised for innovative communications, particularly as we look forward to holding our ‘Innovations’ IFAJ Congress next year.”
* The AgriChat team missed out on the top spot by just 1% of the vote, taking a well-deserved second place behind an entry from Romania.
