Agriland senior northern correspondent, Rachel Martin has been nominated for a number of prestigious writing awards.
The Co. Down native has been shortlisted for the Irish Food Writing Awards 2021.
The competition aims to reward and share excellence in writing and content production on Irish food.
It is open to writers, journalists, chefs, bloggers, broadcasters, photographers and those who promote Irish food on social media and the winners will be announced in an online event in September.
Food writing awards categories
Rachel’s articles have been nominated in two separate categories of the competition.
She has been shortlisted in the ‘Writing on Sustainability in Irish Food’ category, which is an award for writing about sustainability, climate or environmental issues in relation to Irish food or food systems.
Rachel’s shortlisted article revealed how farm trials were about to begin in Northern Ireland to investigate how seaweed could lower livestock emissions. The story can be viewed below.
This category will be judged by René Redzepi, a Danish chef and co-owner of Michelin star restaurant Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark, and also author and writer Catherine Mack.
The second nomination for Rachel is in the ‘Investigative Writing’ category – an award for an Irish writer examining food systems, or work that explores manufacturing processes behind foods or drinks.
The category can include consumer or environmentally-led journalism exploring issues around food – for example, food safety, food waste or food poverty.
For her ‘Bread Wars’ story, Rachel examined declassified government files from the early 1990s revealing the fraught discussions that went on behind closed doors over issues affecting the sale and manufacturing of bread on the island.
The story can be viewed below.
This category will be judged by renowned investigative food journalist, author, and UK Food Writer of the Year 2018, Joanna Blythman.
Other accolades for the Agriland journalist
Recently it was announced that Rachel has been appointed to an International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) Education and Training Task Force.
Rachel will represent Europe on the task force and is one of five journalists in the group representing IFAJ’s major membership regions.
The group will work together to make recommendations for education, training and professional development programs for members of the federation.