Farmers Weekly Interactive has scooped the online community award at a glittering ceremony organised by the Association of Online Publishers on Wednesday 1 October.

Held at London's Hilton Hotel, FWi saw off stiff competition including My Sun - an area of The Sun newspaper's website.

"It's an amazing achievement," said FWi editor Julian Gairdner. "But in many ways this isn't our award, rather it's an award that recognises the way the farming community has engaged with the website and used it both for business and entertainment."

The award citation made mention of how FWi managed to create a great breadth of activity for its users and that business-to-business publishing on line can be fun, he added.

"Without doubt features such as our Harvest Highlights picture gallery and the forums last year around the foot-and-mouth outbreak contributed to our success," said community editor, Isabel Davies.

"Even our Muddy Matches dating service got a mention."