HELP OR HINDER? HOW THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA PORTRAYS FARMING TO THE PUBLIC ANNA JONES 2016 NUFFIELD SCHOLAR
I had been a member of staff at the BBC for nearly 10 years before I applied for my Nuffield Scholarship, working primarily on rural affairs programmes like Countryfile and Radio 4’s Farming Today. Before that I was a regional newspaper journalist, knocking on doors, covering court cases and chasing ambulances. I lived in Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol. My life and career had drifted a long way from the small beef and sheep farm where I was born and raised on the Welsh Borders. By 2015, in my early thirties, I was feeling disconnected from my farming roots. I felt I had lost something. It was Tanya Robbins, 2013 NSch, who first recommended applying for a Nuffield and imparted a key bit of advice: “You don’t have to be a farmer to be a Nuffield Scholar.” It was the beginning of an incredible journey.
Countryside Fund and Mercer Family Charitable Foundation. Thanks to our generous sponsors, Just Farmers has provided media education training for 60 farmers from around the UK and helped more than 100 members of the media contact farmer case studies through our website.
I felt the best contribution I could make was to help farmers and the media better understand each other, by addressing perceived divisions, opening up conversations and building bridges between two different cultures. My study looked at the coverage of agricultural issues in the mainstream media and took me to farms and newsrooms across the US, Kenya, Denmark, France, Belgium and Ireland.
Since becoming a Nuffield Scholar, I have given keynote speeches at conferences around the world, been awarded Associateship of the Council for Awards of Royal Agricultural Societies (CARAS) and was nominated for Digital Innovator of the Year at the British Farming Awards 2020. My freelance media career has gone from strength to strength too, producing Countryfile’s annual Harvest Special, producing and presenting a documentary series about farming for the BBC World Service and writing my first book, due to be published in 2022.
I’ve often heard it said that a “Nuffield Scholarship will change your life”. For me that was spot on. Within six months of presenting at the 2017 Nuffield Conference, I had quit my staff job at the BBC, gone freelance and set up a communications project called ‘Just Farmers’. Our aim is to build confidence among farmers and growers about talking to the media; while helping journalists and programme makers find independent, authentic voices at the grassroots of farming. I successfully applied for start-up funding from the Frank Parkinson Agricultural Trust and charitable grants from the Prince’s
64
I owe much of this to the Nuffield Scholarship experience and my two sponsors, the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society and the Trehane Trust. It helped me build a global network of contacts, find the confidence to truly be myself and gave me the courage and boldness to set out on a new path. Thank you Nuffield.
