Global rural journalists: unite!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

For agricultural journalists this past week Ostend was the place to be! The International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) organised her 54th annual congress in Belgium. The congress kicked off with a master class for colleagues from developing countries, organised by Agriterra and Trias within an EU financed program.

The master class consisted of a series of workshops and as the word already implicates: there was work to be done! The speakers – most of them IFAJ members themselves - actively involved the participants, coming from a number of African and Latin-American countries. Discussions were held on topics like freedom of press, the advantage of working with farmers’ associations and cooperatives, communication with members or even how to involve the general public.

It became clear that the challenges and problems which journalists experience, show quite some similarity, whether the journalist comes from America or from the DR Congo. It also showed that journalists from countries with less or no freedom of press at all, can gain much support from IFAJ colleagues. This even more in case IFAJ opens its doors also for federations of journalists from these countries, which is today - according to their constitution - not possible. Both Agriterra and Trias see lots of possibilities to improve the position of journalists and communication staff in service of farmers’ organisations!