The Guild of Food Writers Awards 2026
Jack Thompson and Dan Saladino won the 2026 Guild of Food Writers Award for best food podcast or broadcast for their BBC Food Programme, Why is Africa Feeding Us?
Food systems journalist and analyst
Works with international media, think tanks, philanthropy and investors to make sense of complex food systems and supply chains.
As a farmer’s son with a master’s in food policy and a decade of experience across research, business and journalism, there are few better placed to report, analyse and communicate its importance.
Winner of the 2026 Guild of Food Writers Prize and the 2025 Sophie Coe Prize for food writing. 2025 Humboldt Fellow for the future of food. Fluent in French and Spanish, and gets by in Wolof. Based in Dakar, Senegal.
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The Guild of Food Writers Awards 2026
Jack Thompson and Dan Saladino won the 2026 Guild of Food Writers Award for best food podcast or broadcast for their BBC Food Programme, Why is Africa Feeding Us?
Iran war forces farmers to seek fertilizer alternatives from cow dung to compost
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — When Senegalese farmer Abou Sow first watched U.S. missiles strike Iran on social media, he had a sinking feeling it would soon affect agriculture in the West African nation. Since the war began on Feb. 28, fertilizer prices have risen by 40%.
From potatoes to padel: Farmers convert barns into courts
As the sport soars in popularity and inner-city padel courts become harder to build and book, farmers struggling to make ends meet are stepping up.
The Limits of the UAE's Push for Food Security
Deep in the heart of the Sahara Desert, an industrial complex of greenhouses rises above the dunes. Running underneath the sand is a 35-mile-long pipeline transporting water to the property in this remote part of Mauritania.The owners? A firm from the United Arab Emirates. The goal? Farming blueberries.
Some West African farmers turn to TikTok as part of agriculture's changing image
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — When Senegalese farmer Pape Fall first downloaded TikTok, it was to watch football and funny videos. In the last two years, however, he’s experimented with it to promote his produce and now sells most of it via the platform.
BBC Radio 4 - The Food Programme, Why Is Africa Feeding Us?
Dan Saladino and reporter Jack Thompson investigate the UK's growing dependence on farms in northern Senegal for food such as sweetcorn, radishes and beans. Is this a good thing?
Why ‘mob grazing’ may help protect drought-hit Senegal’s vast grasslands
A regenerative scheme has shown early promise, with herders hopeful it can restore degraded pastures.
The Sophie Coe Prize
The winner of this year’s Sophie Coe Prize was announced at the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery on Saturday 12th July. Jack Thompson was awarded the £1,500 Prize for his article ‘Separating Weetabix from the Chaff’, which highlights the difficulties faced by farmers who are increasingly obliged to deal with international corporations in a style described by the judges as “very well written, lively, informative and accessible.”
Foreign overfishing in Senegal fuels migration to Spain, a report finds
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Overfishing by foreign vessels is decimating fish stocks in the West African country of Senegal, which is in turn fueling migration to Spain.
'I bought their dream': How a US company's huge land deal in Senegal went bust
In interviews with company officials and residents, The Associated Press explored one of the growing number of foreign investment projects targeting Africa, home to about 60% of the world’s remaining uncultivated arable land.
Rural Romania’s in turmoil — and foreign farmers get the blame
A British expat is one of many in physical and financial peril because of a rising tide of nationalism and a scramble for land and water in the age of climate change.
'We fall and we rise': Some amputees in Sierra Leone turn to farming to combat discrimination
The Farming on Crutches initiative offers a rare refuge for Sierra Leone's some 28,000 amputees from its brutal civil war. It aims to restore amputees’ confidence and independence by teaching them skills to start a farm business.
Sierra Leone loves rice and wants to free itself from imports. But how to do it?
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — Rice borders on the sacred in Sierra Leone. Unless a meal includes rice, people say, you haven’t eaten at all.
A fool’s mission: Trying to track the impact of EU migration funding in Senegal
Last year, I set out to investigate the on-the-ground impact of the tens of millions of euros the EU has spent trying to address the root causes of migration in Senegal.
Fuel to Fork
Fossil fuels are the lifeblood of our food system. This brand new podcast series exposes their hidden role in the food we eat– revealing how food accounts for 15% of global fossil fuel use. If we want to tackle climate change, we can't leave food off the plate.
Kevin Carmody Award for Outstanding Investigative Reporting, Large: SEJ 23rd Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment
Through comprehensive on-the-ground reporting in West Africa and painstaking gathering and assessment of shipping and other supply-chain data, The Financial Times showed how some half a million metric tons of fish from the waters off Mauritania were turned into fish meal used in Norwegian salmon farms. This FT investigation used data visualization, motion graphics and photography to great effect, literally connecting the dots between crisis-level food shortages in West Africa — driven by the near-collapse of the region's fish stocks that Norway's salmon farming operations had caused — and the salmon marketed on UK supermarket shelves."
The European boats fishing under a veil of secrecy
EU vessels are registering with African fleets and exploiting local fishing laws
The Social Cost of Carbon Credits | Hakai Magazine
Multinational companies funded a US $4.4-million carbon offset project. Senegalese locals did much of the work—and saw almost none of the money.
WhatsApp voice notes are revolutionizing farming in Senegal
For farmers in Senegal who struggle to read or write, sending voice notes has unlocked a new world of collaboration across the industry.
They had never seen the ocean. Then climate change made them fishermen.
Climate change is expected to uproot more than a billion people by 2050, forcing many to radically change their ways of life. The experience of Mauritania’s herders-turned-fishermen offers a window into what this transition could be like.
Separating the Weetabix from the Chaff
Jack Thompson traces the supply chain of his family farm's wheat to Weetabix, the country’s favourite cereal, taking in colonialism, seed monopoly, and the future of British farming.
World Bank climate funds green hotels while fishermen sink
Climate Home reveals that the World Bank Group has counted support for luxury hotels as climate finance, which experts say fails the most vulnerable
'Women farmers are invisible': A West African project helps them claim their rights — and land
Mariama Sonko, president of a 115,000-strong rural women’s rights movement in West Africa, is training female farmers from cultures where women are often excluded from ownership of the land they work so closely.
From sketch to sea: diving into Wales’ underwater farming revolution
With its ‘underwater gardens’ echoing a tradition of sustainably harvesting the local waters, we go beneath the waves at a community-owned, regenerative Welsh seafood farm
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jackthompsonjournalist@gmail.com