The prominent Bright Leaf Awards are given to the most outstanding and relevant agriculture stories in print, radio, and television. It honors the most compelling photos that capture the essence of Tobacco farming and the agriculture industry.
The project head of the Bright Leaf Awards, Didet Danguilan, is encouraging all professional Filipino journalists residing in the Philippines to join the competition as their way of sharing the successes of farmers through their stories—in whatever medium—to the public. She shares "Their stories need to be seen, heard and appreciated. The Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards is the best way to achieve that."
To know who are wondering what are the categories for the Bright Leaf Awards, you can check the list below:
Agriculture Story of the Year
Agriculture Photo of the Year
Tobacco Story of the Year
Tobacco Photo of the Year
Best Television Program or Segment
Best Radio Program or Segment
Best National News Story
Best Regional News Story
Best National Feature Story
Best Regional Feature Story and
The most special is The Oriental Leaf Award which is given to those who have won a Bright Leaf Award in any category for five consecutive years. The Oriental Leaf Awardees become part of an elite group of individuals that comprise the Bright Leaf Hall of Fame.
According to project head Ms. Danguilan, they want to highlight the stories that enlighten and inspire the Filipinos. She added, "This is even more important now because of the recent typhoons and earthquakes that have greatly impacted the agriculture industry. This is one way to provide some light in what was a very dark time for the Filipino farmer.”
Another aim for this competition is to collect a larger crop of entries than any other year by actively reaching out to tri-media practitioners from more agricultural provinces to invite them to submit their articles and photos.
To those who are interested, participation in The Bright Leaf Awards is free of charge. The accepted entries will be published, aired and announced between September 1, 2013 and August 31, 2014. There is no limit to the number of stories in any of the categories that can be submitted by the contestants. However, no story can be entered into more than one category. The entries maybe presented in English or any of the regional dialects in the Philippines. An English translation is required for the entries that are not in English.
To get the entry forms and learn more about this project, please visit www.thebrightleafawards.com. Official contact numbers of the Bright Leaf secretariat are (02) 697-8110, (0915) 5508301 or (0918) 4130797. For emails, you can send them to secretariat@thebrightleafawards.com.