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UN “potato” photography contest

12th March 2008

The UN announced that they would be holding a worldwide photography contest to highlight the important role that the potato, the planet’s fourth largest food source, has in the fight against hunger and poverty. This event is part of 2008’s International Year which is dedicated to the tasty tuber.

The contest, entitled Focus on a global food, asks photographers to capture the spirit of the International Year of the Potato in images that illustrate potato’s biodiversity, its cultivation, processing, marketing, consumption and how people the world over use it.

“Photographers who explore the world of the potato will find plenty of subject matter,” said UN Food and Agricultural Organisation’s (FAO) NeBambi Lutaladio, who is coordinating this International Year, the aims of which are to raise global awareness of the potato’s potential to help countries achieve the targets set for reducing extreme poverty and other global ills by the year 2015.

“It is grown in more than 100 countries, from the Andes and China's Yunnan plateau to the subtropical lowlands of India, on the plains of northern Europe and the steppes of the Ukraine,” Mr. Lutaladio noted.

Nikon are sponsoring the contest which has separate categories for professional and amateur photographers, and will accept single digital images or ‘photo stories’ of four to eight related images, in either black-and-white or in colour.

The winning photographs will be chosen by a selection panel that includes some of the world’s leading professionals in the field of photography. Winners will be awarded cash prizes totalling some $11,000 as well as of course some Nikon cameras.

The deadline for entries is 1 September 2008.

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