Country Life in BC contributors won the lion’s share of photography awards during this year’s annual conference of the Canadian Farm Writers Federation, which took place in New Westminster last weekend.
Tom Walker won the Don Baron award with his first-place feature photo of Vern Winger of WaterTec Irrigation with a TWIG wireless irrigation unit at John Grawher’s ranch near Clinton in the paper’s September 2018 edition.
In the same category, Ronda Payne won silver for a photo of a young woman with her steer from the 4-H auction at the Pacific National Exhibition in the same edition of the paper.
Sean Hitrec received the John Phillips award for his second-place news photo from the Chilliwack Plowing Match on the cover of the May 2019 issue of the paper, and Myrna Stark Leader won third-place for her photo from the Kelowna Feast of Fields, which appeared in the September 2018 edition of the paper.
Myrna was also recognized with a gold award in the general periodical category for Rooted in Strength (Taking care of our families and ourselves), a publication released late last year on mental wellness. She collaborated with Monica Wagner, Peter Gredic and Owen Roberts to produce the publication released by Farm Credit Canada.
During the conference, farm writers from across Canada toured farms in Burnaby, Vancouver, Richmond and Delta and listened to presentations on mental wellness in the agricultural community, as well as presentations by Kim Grout and Harold Steves on BC’s Agricultural Land Reserve. BC Minister of Agriculture Lana Popham joined writers for a dinner cruise on the Fraser River as part of the opening reception.
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