£500 on offer in family farm essay competition

Got strong views on family farms?

If so, sharing them could win you £500, thanks to a competition run by The Family Farmers’ Association and Farmers Weekly.

Launched to celebrate the International Year of Family Farming, the essay-writing competition is seeking pieces of 1,000 words or less titled The Future of the Family Farm.

See also: Read a Q&A with the Family Farmers Association

How you choose to interpret this is up to you. Your piece might be about the incredibly important role family farms will continue to play in the countryside and the economy, it might be about your experiences growing up on one, or about the threats they face, or the differences between the ones in this country and abroad.

The essay could be a first-person piece or more academic in style or a write-up of an interview you conduct with someone else. It might be full of informative facts, or it might be a heartfelt piece that makes us laugh or cry.

Basically, we’re looking for pieces that help raise awareness about family farms and help celebrate the vital role they play.

The best entry will be picked by judges from the Family Farmers’ Association and Farmers Weekly, and will appear on the FFA website. An abridged version of it will also appear in Farmers Weekly magazine.

The winning entrant will be presented with their prize in the House of Commons on 21 October.

Either email your entries to pippafamilyfarmers@btconnect.com or post them to Essay Competition, The Family Farmers’ Association, Osborne Newton, Aveton Gifford, Kingsbridge, South Devon TQ7 4PE. The closing date is Sunday 31 August.