FWn…a history of achievement
FWn has delivered agricultural and rural development education messages to the UK, EU and Southern farming and rural communities since 1988. During this time we have earned a reputation for producing high quality work programmes, highlights of which include:
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LANDMARK (16 pages, bi-monthly journal in English) and Agri Repère (French language - published in collaboration with Ceipal (a French NGO), which provide independent topical comment on agricultural and rural development issues, together with the associated questions of poverty and hunger in a brief and accessible format. LANDMARK has covered a broad range of articles on international rural development covering such themes as: ‘Slave labour, child trafficking and chocolate’, ‘HIV and the African rural labour force’, ‘GMOs’, ‘The future of food and farming’ and provided analyses of the impact of various policy changes on vulnerable rural communities in the South.
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The design, translation, production and distribution of the English language versions of 3 editions of the French journal Terre Citoyenne (TC). TC is Fondation pour le Progrès de l’Homme’s (FPH) world newspaper. Our English language translation has been used as the basis for further translations into Spanish, Portuguese, Albanian, Chinese, Vietnamese and Hindi. The themes of these editions were World Agriculture (TC2), Biotechnology (TC4) and Seeds (TC6).
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The production of a pair of leaflets describing some of the basic facts of world food production and associated questions of poverty and hunger, ‘Food Awakening’ and ‘Farming Lives’. The leaflets were produced in collaboration with the Arthur Rank Centre (ARC), Farmers Link and the Agricultural Christian Fellowship. Food Awakening, which was initially shared with the ARC’s rural chaplains’ network, was so well received that, to date, more than 45,000 copies have been purchased and disseminated by outside parties.
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The compilation and production, in collaboration with a number of leading development organisations including ActionAid, the Fairtrade Foundation, ITDG and Oxfam, of a series of 14 short, accessible Briefing Papers. Each Paper has a focus on a specific Country, Issue or Commodity, with rural poverty as a cross cutting theme. The Briefing Papers are aimed at introducing the reader to the subject area and providing contact details for further information.
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Making significant formal and informal contributions to work undertaken by Christian Aid, Action Aid, Oxfam and the UK Food Group in various areas of world food policy and international rural development. FWn’s contribution has been able to offer information, insight and a perspective, that may otherwise have been marginalised. Equally, our contact with the UK farming establishment enables us to represent to them, a development NGO perspective on international food policy. The forum that we have provided has recently led to the better understanding in both sectors of each other’s perspectives.
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Investing time and resources into developing a web site that is currently attracting some 2,000 hits a week. As well as setting up information exchanges with other web sites (such as the UK based Farming and Countryside Education organisation, which more than quadruples the viewings of our information).
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Organising meetings that have attracted as many as 150 farmers and other rural interest individuals at a time, to discuss global agricultural issues
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Holding other meetings with all major farming and rural organisations in the UK and some overseas, including the National Farmers Union, the Royal Agricultural Society of England, the Family Farmers Association, the Small and Family Farm Alliance, Coordination Paysanne Européenne, Via Campesina, Future in Your Hands (Ghana), Kiswendsida (Burkina Faso),
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Writing a course module for the Higher National Diploma in Agriculture, validated by BTEC (now Edexcel), called, ‘Agriculture in a World Context’, which is available in up to 25% of the UK’s land based colleges.
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Generating considerable Media interest, for example: - Working to get FWn’s ‘Fair Trade in Farm Shops’ project supported on BBC Radio 4’s programme ‘The Archers’, Radio Humberside’s early morning farming programme, BBC Radio 4’s, ‘Costing the Earth’, BBC Radio 4’s, ‘Farming Today’, BBC TV Scotland’s ‘Landward’ programme and BBC TV’s, ‘Country File’, FWn’s ‘Community Linking’ project has attracted television interest from the a UK topical TV discussion programme, ‘Curry Nights’, hosted by Edwina Curry. Much of FWn’s work has been reported in national and local newspapers as well as farming and rural magazines such as ‘Farmers Weekly’ and ‘Country Living’.
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Carrying out innovative research to support FWn’s communication needs, for example with a pilot research project, ‘Trap Cropping’, that supported FWn’s biodiversity work. This project was awarded the Henry Ford European Conservation Award in 1995/6.
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Achieving tangible results in awareness-raising through practical projects, such as ‘Fair Trade in Farm Shops’. The impact of this project was that many UK farm shops began stocking fairly traded produce.
FWn’s work, to raise awareness about international rural development issues, has provided us with an intimate understanding of the situation facing vulnerable rural communities in the South. This has provided many useful contacts within important Southern organisations and groups that enables us to identify and authoritatively portray the main preoccupations of vulnerable rural communities in the South.