RTÉ won two prizes for agriculture coverage at this year's Guild of Agricultural Journalism awards, including the prestigious "Bull trophy" at an awards ceremony last Friday.
The awards, which are given out every two years, aim to promote and highlight excellence in coverage of farming, food and rural life across the country and foster a long and rich tradition of agricultural reporting in Ireland.
Production company Crawford McCann, for RTÉ, won the "Bull trophy" for Brexit – Farming on the Edge – a TV series which aired in January 2018 which highlighted the impact Brexit is having on farmers and farming as it becomes a reality North and South of the border. Out of 28 entries, it was chosen as the winner by an independent judging panel of industry and media experts.
Chair of the judging panel Zoe Kavanagh, Chief Executive of the National Dairy Council said, "I am delighted to present the overall prize to Crawford McCann for this excellent TV production which was the unanimous choice of the judges to receive the overall prize tonight".
"The entry was the clear winner for the range and scope of its analysis in a series of on-site interviews of the problems facing Irish farmers and the clear presentation of the threats Brexit poses to their livelihood, to rural communities and to the economy of the country as a whole."
Damien O’Reilly, of Countrywide, RTÉ also picked up the award for best radio programme for ‘The Fodder Crisis’, a live show reported from a slatted cattle shed on the Gorman farm near Abbeyleix, broadcast to an "in-studio" audience of bullocks, calves and heifers.
It was an appropriate set up given the basis for the programme: livestock would normally have been out in the fields for a number of weeks at the start of April, but with a gush of continuous rain, the grass wouldn't grow and the fodder started to run out the country.
